Psychology 2011A/B Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Franz Brentano, Wilhelm Wundt, Metacognition

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2011A/B
• Professor: barus

Document Summary

Experiential stream encompasses more generally thoughts, perceptions, feelings, emotions, imaginations, etc. Rejected the notion that scientists could understand experience itself through unaided self observations of others. Experimental introspection con ned to research concerning sensation and perception, lab instruments were used to vary the stimuli. Franz brentano would call this inner perception the discrete noticing of what was happening to mental events as they occurred without interference. The opposite of inner perception is observation the direct focusing on one"s inner mental life: according to brentano this would not work because attention would be drawn away from mental life thoughts, feelings and volitions. James ended up with the notion that mental states could only be examined and reported once they had already occurred (this is retrospection) The computational approach: mental processes were conceptualized as operations on mental representations, the brain as similar to a computer.