The foundation of the institute for experimental psychology at Leipzig University

Summary During the 1979–80 academic year psychologists from all over the world will celebrate the centennial of the Institute for Experimental Psychology at Leipzig University, established by Wilhelm Wundt during the winter of 1879–80. First, this paper will present the historical context in which the laboratory method of research instruction developed in nineteenth-century Germany. Next, Wundt's extensive experience with laboratory research before coming to Leipzig will be described. Finally, the origin, development, and organization of Wundt's laboratory will be chronicled, beginning with his call to Leipzig. The implications of Wundt's achievement for modern psychology will be discussed. Emphasis is placed on the use of archival materials, documents, and eyewitness accounts.A slightly modified version of this paper was presented as an Invited Centennial Lecture at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association in New York on September 4, 1979The preparation of this article was supported by a research award from the Dr. W.W. Kaempfer, the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, University of South Alabama, Mobile, Alabama, USA     

UNDERSTANDING THE MECHANISM OF BICYCLES A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF DEVELOPMENTAL CHANGE AFTER 13 YEARS1

Cette étude a, pour point de départ, l'observation faite en 1953 par un anthropologue, que le principe du levier, et par conséquent celui des machines comme la bicyclette, n'était en général pas compris dans l'Ouest africain. l'A. a mis au point une méthode pour mesurer, à partir des dessins réalisés par les sujets, le degré de compréhension du fonctionnement de la bicyclette. En 1955, à Accra, une étude génétique a été menée sur des enfants de 6 à 15 ans; la même étude a été refaite en 1968, pour les mêmes âges; enfin, une expérience identique a été réalisée avec un échantillon comparable d'enfants habitant un quartier ouvrier de Glasgow. Plus de 2 000 dessins ont été recueillis dont 600, pris au hasard, ont été analysés. Les résultats des enfants africains (garçons) montrent, entre 1955 et 1968, une amélioration très significative : nettement inférieurs à ceux des garçons de Glasgow en 1955, ils atteignent, en 1968, le même niveau; par contre, les résultats des filles d'Accra ne changent pas.     

Implicit learning of nonlocal musical rules: implicitly learning more than chunks

Dominant theories of implicit learning assume that implicit learning merely involves the learning of chunks of adjacent elements in a sequence. In the experiments presented here, participants implicitly learned a nonlocal rule, thus suggesting that implicit learning can go beyond the learning of chunks. Participants were exposed to a set of musical tunes that were all generated using a diatonic inversion. In the subsequent test phase, participants either classified test tunes as obeying a rule (direct test) or rated their liking for the tunes (indirect test). Both the direct and indirect tests were sensitive to knowledge of chunks. However, only the indirect test was sensitive to knowledge of the inversion rule. Furthermore, the indirect test was overall significantly more sensitive than the direct test, thus suggesting that knowledge of the inversion rule was below an objective threshold of awareness.     

How I became a Jungian analyst

This paper is a reflection on the significance of 80 years of my life and the 40 years of it I have spent working as a Jungian analyst in Europe and in Israel. If my Jewish identity and my experience of the tragic events of the Holocaust have profoundly influenced the course of my life, it has been my training as a Jungian analyst in Zürich that permitted me to establish a new relationship with the traditional Jewish symbols and created the possibility of a new way of experiencing what it means to be a Jew. This new understanding has in turn helped me both in my work with Holocaust survivors and victims of Israel's various wars and in my theoretical reflections on this subject.     

Three Assistants on Boltzmann

The three demi-articles presented here would give a brief biographical account of Ludwig Boltzmann’s life plus some details about his Vienna laboratories first in the 1860’s in the Erdberg and second in Türkenstrasse from 1894. Josef Nabl’s account discusses J. J. Thomson’s Laboratory in Cambridge, which allows a provisional comparison between two different largely contemporary institutes. Nabl’s second letter also mentions Lord Kelvin’s late rejection of the kinetic gas theory of Maxwell and Boltzmann, rejection which on top of the negative attitude of Mach, Zermelo, and Poincaré probably did not benefit Boltzmann’s state of mind and may have contributed to the extreme character of Boltzmann’s anti-philosophical counterattack starting in 1903. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Psychologie et culture: vers une solution du “Babel”?

The current scientific debate on the relationship between psychological development and culture has been given different labels. These labels not only indicate divergent methodological approaches and heterogeneous research interests, but also represent distinct national scientific traditions. The authors suggest making a distinction between three main perspectives, namely “Cross-Cultural Psychology”, “Cultural Psychology” and “Psychologie Interculturelle”; a specific German approach called “Kulturpsychologie” is also briefly touched upon. These perspectives are described as distinct types of conceptual approaches and research strategies on the relationship between psychology and culture.