Experimental psychology is a relatively young science. Its origin was prepared by the widely developed in the middle of the 19th century. the study of elementary mental functions, the sphere of sensory knowledge of the personality - sensations and perceptions. The knowledge of these processes, carried out mainly by the method of introspection, showed the impossibility of obtaining reliable data, the difficulty of interpreting them, and led to the need to search for other, more effective methods research, thus preparing the basis for the emergence experimental psychology. The separation of experimental psychology into an independent area of ​​psychological knowledge, different from philosophy and physiology, is timed to the second half of the 19th century, when under the leadership of the outstanding German psychologist W. Wundt (1832-1920) the world's first psychological laboratory equipped with technical devices and instruments was created . Their use marked the transition from a qualitative, descriptive study of the psyche to a more accurate, quantitative study of it, a transition from the method of introspection as the main method psychological research to the widespread introduction of the experimental method into the practice of psychological research. By this time, the discovery of the basic psychophysical law (the Weber-Fechner law) dates back, which made it possible to establish a connection between physical and psychological phenomena. The basic psychophysical law showed the possibility of quantitative measurement of mental phenomena, and this discovery led to the creation of the so-called subjective scales. Since that time, the main object of measurement was the sensations of humans and animals (E. Thorndike and others), their study continued until the end of the 19th century. A major contribution to the development of experimental psychology was made by V.M. Bekhterev (1857-1927) - a Russian physiologist, neuropathologist, psychiatrist, psychologist, who founded the first experimental psychological laboratory in Russia (1885), and then the world's first Psychoneurological Institute for the comprehensive study of human
century. His work "The General Foundations of Human Reflexology" (1917) received worldwide recognition.
At the end of XIX - beginning of XX century. experimental psychology begins to play an ever greater role in the study of the human psyche. The experimental method began to be used in the study of not only general patterns leaks mental processes, properties and states of a person, but also individual differences in sensitivity, reaction time, memory, associations (F. Galton, D. Cattell). Thus, in the depths of experimental psychology, a new direction is emerging - differential psychology, the subject of which is individual differences between people and their groups.
At the same time, the development of those areas of probability theory and mathematical statistics, which formed the basis for the quantitative processing of experimental data, also took place. The first special psychometric institution was created in England by the outstanding psychologist F. Galton. In 1884 he founded the Anthropological Laboratory, one of the tasks of which was to obtain statistical data on human abilities, he is credited with the use of the correlation method in psychology. F. Galton attracted such mathematicians as K. Pearson, who invented analysis of variance, and R. Fisher, who applied factor analysis in his work “General Intelligence, Objectively Defined and Measured” (1904), to assess the level of intellectual development of a person .
With the advent of quantitative data processing methods, the experimental method became the basis of psychodiagnostics. One of the first statistically valid tests of intelligence was developed and published in 1905-1907. French scientist A. Vinet. In the future, A. Wiene improved this test together with T. Simon.
In the second half of the 1920s. new psychological tests began to appear, including intellectual and personality tests (G. Eysenck, R. Cattell), tests related to socio-psychological research came into practice: a sociometric test created by the American
Rican psychologist D. Moreno, many measuring techniques developed by a group of American social psychologists - students and followers of K. Levin.
For the 1950-1960s. 20th century accounts for the bulk of various psychodiagnostic techniques. These years became the years of the greatest psychometric activity of scientists-psychologists. Modern psychodiagnostics has become a separate area of ​​scientific and practical psychological knowledge. Many psychodiagnostic methods have been created, the number of which continues to increase rapidly. Increasingly widespread use in psychodiagnostics is modern methods mathematics and physics, as well as computer tools.
Thus, the experimental method has become a reliable basis for theoretical generalizations and practical advice in psychological science. As a result, psychology rather quickly enriched itself with new, more reliable theories in comparison with theories based on the research of the speculative, introspective method. Wide opportunities have opened up for the development of applied fields of knowledge, including labor psychology, engineering, medical and educational psychology. Thanks to the experimental method of research, modern psychology has become not only a reliable academic, but also a practically useful science.

Lecture number 1.

Thousands of years of practical knowledge of human psychology and centuries of philosophical reflection prepared the ground for the formation of psychological science. This happens in the 19th century as a result of the introduction of the experimental method into psychological research. The process of establishing psychology as an experimental science takes about a century (mid-18th to mid-19th centuries), during which the idea of ​​the possibility of measuring mental phenomena was nurtured. The first to express this idea was H. Wolf, who published in 1732 the Work under the title "Empirical Psychology", and in 1734 - "Rational Psychology". He coined the term "psychometrics". He considered it possible to measure the magnitude of pleasure by conscious perfection, and the magnitude of attention by the duration of argumentation. The idea of ​​psychometry was vaguely expressed in the same century by the naturalist Bonet, the mathematicians Maupertuis and Bernoulli. In 1764 Pluque suggested that one could measure the level of intelligence in terms of the number of objects represented, the distinctness of these representations (images), and the rate of appearance of distinct representations. Hagen (1734) considered it possible to measure the intensity of attention by the number of thoughts in the subject and the time they are retained in all their complexity. He also proposed some experimental designs. For example, to observe the behavior of a person in whom fear is artificially induced. Kruger (1743) invented an experiment to measure the intensity of sensations, which, in his opinion, should be proportional to the force acting on the nerves. But, unfortunately, all these were only plans, in fact, unrealized.

In the first quarter of the 19th century philosopher I.F. Herbart (1776-1841) proclaimed psychology a science that should be based on the experience of metaphysics and mathematics. True, he recognized observation as the main psychological method, and not experiment, which, in his opinion, is inherent in physics. Herbart's ideas had a strong influence on the recognized founders of experimental psychology - G. Fechner and W. Wundt.

According to P. Fress, philosophy provided psychology with the first concepts, but experimental psychology owes its first problems and methods to physiology. In 1811-1822. Bell and Magendie discovered the presence in nervous system two types of nerves: sensory and motor. In 1832, Hall established that the brain is the center of motor reflexes. I. Müller (1838) discovered the law of the specific energy of the nerves, corresponding to only one type of sensation. Helmholtz in 1860 expanded the scope of this law by showing that nerves are differentiated not only according to the modality principle, but also according to the submodality principle, i.e. by the qualities of sensations (height and loudness of sounds, colors of visual stimuli). The 19th century is the time of the discovery of various nerve centers that control the corresponding mental functions: movement, speech, vision, hearing. By the end of the century, the idea of ​​not only differentiation of brain functions, but also their integration, i.e. there is an idea of ​​the brain as a complex structured whole (Jackson, Sherrington).

The centenary maturation of the idea of ​​the measurability of mental phenomena ended in the middle of the 19th century with the appearance of experimental psychology. And the most significant figure in this event is the German scientist Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801-1887). Physician, physicist, philosopher, he achieved significant results in all these areas. But immortalized his name as a psychologist. Being a supporter of panpsychism (a kind of psychological parallelism), he set out to prove the identity of spirit and matter, two sides of reality, using experimental and mathematical methods. He proceeded from the idea that by measuring the physical (material) side, one can also measure the mental (ideal) side of reality. One has only to find the law of their correlation.

In his research, he relied on the discovery of his predecessor in the Department of Physiology at the University of Leipzig, prof. E.G. Weber, the relationship between sensation and stimulus, which now bears the name of the Bouguer-Weber law. As a result, Fechner formulated the famous logarithmic law, according to which the magnitude of sensation is proportional to the logarithm of the magnitude of the stimulus. This law is named after him. By scrupulously examining the relationship between physical stimulation and mental responses, Fechner laid the foundations for a new scientific discipline - psychophysics, which in essence was the experimental psychology of the time. He carefully developed several experimental methods, three of which received the epithet "classical": the method of minimal changes (or boundaries), the method of average error (or trimming) and the method of constant stimuli (or constants). Fechner's main work, Elements of Psychophysics, published in 1860, is rightfully considered the first work on experimental psychology.

A very significant contribution to the development of the psychological experiment at about the same time was made by another German researcher Hermann Helmholtz (1821-1894). Using physical methods, he measured the speed of propagation of excitation in the nerve fiber, which laid the foundation for the study of psychomotor reactions, in particular such a section of experimental psychology as "Reaction Time". His works on the psychophysiology of the senses are fundamental: Physiological Optics (1867) and The Teaching of Auditory Sensations as the Physiological Basis of Music Theory (1875). His theory of color vision and resonance theory of hearing are still relevant today. His hypothesis of "unconscious inferences" enriched the psychology of perception with the discovery in mental reactions of a subjective addition to the action of objective stimuli. Helmholtz's ideas about the role of muscles in sensory knowledge were further creatively developed by the great Russian physiologist I.M. Sechenov in his reflex theory.

The next period in the development of EP is associated with the name of Wilhelm Wundt (1832 - 1920). He was also a scientist of broad interests: psychologist, physiologist, philosopher, linguist. But, perhaps, it is he who can be called the first professional psychologists. He has the honor of organizing the world's first psychological laboratory (Leipzig, 1879), which was later reorganized into the EP Institute. This was accompanied by the publication of the first official document formalizing psychology as an independent discipline. The Leipzig laboratory has become an international center for EP. From its walls came such outstanding researchers as Krepelin, Külpe, Meimar (Germany); Stanley Hall, Mac Cattell, Munstenberg, Titchener, Warren (USA); Spearman (England); Bourdon (France); Thierry, Michotte (Belgium).

In Fundamentals of Physiological Psychology (1874), Wundt put forward a plan for the development of psychology as a special science that uses the method of laboratory experiment to divide consciousness into elements, study them and clarify the connections between them. The task of EP, according to Wundt, is an accurate analysis of individual consciousness with the help of precisely regulated self-observation. The main subject of study is mental processes. At the same time, relatively simple phenomena (sensations, perceptions, emotions, memory), according to Wundt, can be studied with the help of an experiment, and the area of ​​higher mental functions (thinking, speech, will) is not available to experiment and is studied by the cultural-historical method (through the study of myths). , customs, language, etc.).

The main methodological features of scientific psychology, according to Wundt, are self-observation and objective control. Without self-observation, psychology turns into physiology, and without external control, the data of self-observation are unreliable, and there is a return to the old speculative positions of introspectionism. These points were also emphasized by Wundt's students. So, one of the founders of EP in Russia - N.N. Lange (1858-1921) believed that the role of experiment in psychology is to preserve and record observable processes with the help of external means. They are so unstable that only experiment can keep them in an observable form. The American E. Titchener (1867-1927) noted that a psychological experiment is not a test of some strength or ability, but a dissection of consciousness, an analysis of a part of the mental mechanism, and psychological experience consists in self-observation under standard conditions. Each experience, in his opinion, is a lesson in self-observation.

Gestalt psychologists (M. Wertheimer, W. Köhler, K. Koffa, and others) criticized Wundt's views on consciousness as a device made of elements, or, as they put it, "made of bricks and cement." Functional psychology, based on the evolutionary theory of Charles Darwin, instead of studying the elements of consciousness and its structure, is interested in consciousness as a tool for adapting the organism to the environment, i.e. its function in human life. However, consciousness is interpreted from the standpoint of introspectionism - as a set of phenomena studied through self-observation. The most prominent representatives of functionalism: T. Ribot (France); E. Claparede (Switzerland); D. Dewey (USA - Chicago School), R. Woodworth (USA - Columbia School).

Nevertheless, it was Wundt and his school that determined the further development of psychology along the path of experiment. Thus, the psychologists of the famous Wurzburg school, close to functionalism, expanded the boundaries of the laboratory experiment for the study of thinking and will, for which, by the way, Wundt himself blamed them. The method of introspection was deepened by them and called "experimental self-observation". The school was headed by a student of Wundt, the German O. Kulpe (1862 - 1915).

Another German scientist, Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850-1909), who did not share Wundt's views on self-observation as a research method, made a significant contribution to EP. Under the influence of Fechner's psychophysics, he put forward as the task of psychology the establishment of the fact that a mental phenomenon depends on a certain factor. In this case, a reliable indicator is not the subject's statement about his experiences, but his real achievements in one or another activity proposed by the experimenter. The subject was not even asked about his subjective impressions. Ebbinghaus' main achievements were in the study of memory and skills. The famous "Ebbinghaus curve", which demonstrates the dynamics of the process of forgetting, is still in the arsenal of science.

In Russia, the introspective approach was criticized by I.M. Sechenov (1829-1905), who put forward a program for building a new psychology based on an objective method and principle of the development of the psyche. Although Sechenov himself worked as a physiologist and physician, his works and ideas provided a powerful methodological basis for all of psychology. His natural-science theory of psychological regulation in the form of a reflex theory provided an explanatory principle for the phenomena of mental life. And his research practice developed and strengthened the authority of experimental methods in the physiological and psychological fields.

The 90s of the 19th century are marked by the expansion of the instrumental base of psychology: a "test experiment" is added to the traditional "research" experiment. If the task of the first was to obtain data on a particular phenomenon or psychological patterns, then the task of the second was to obtain data characterizing a person or a group of people. In fact, these are various tests, the results of which give reason to judge the level of development of certain qualities of a person. In other words, the test was included in the EP as its full-fledged method. Its main advantage from the very beginning was its practical orientation.

Psychologist James McKean Cattell (1860 - 1944) is considered to be the ancestor of test methods, who applied them in the study of a wide range of mental functions (sensory, intellectual, motor, etc.). He discovered the phenomenon of anticipation (anticipation).

However, the idea of ​​using the test to study individual differences goes back to the English psychologist and anthropologist Francis Galton (1822-1911), who attributed these differences to a hereditary factor. However, the tests in his works were not fully formalized. Galton laid the foundation for a new direction in science - differential psychology. He proposed the "twin method", the method of studying the associations of ideas and other empirical methods. For the first time in scientific practice, he used statistical data to substantiate his conclusions, and in 1877 he proposed the method of correlations for processing massive data.

In fact, he paved the way for the introduction of statistical and mathematical methods in psychological research, which, naturally, increased the reliability of the results and made it possible to reveal dependencies that were invisible to the eye. The mathematician and biologist Karl Pearson (1857-1936) began to cooperate with Galton, who developed a special statistical apparatus to test Darwin's theory. As a result, the method was carefully polished and tested. correlation analysis, which still uses the well-known Pearson coefficient. Later, the British R. Fisher and C. Spearman (1863-1945) joined in similar work. The first became famous for the invention of the analysis of variance and the work on the design of the experiment. Spearman, studying the intellectual sphere of man, applied factor analysis of data. This statistical method was developed by other researchers (G. Thompson, K. Burt, L. Thurston) and is currently widely used as one of the most powerful means of identifying psychological addictions.

In Russia at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, the most prominent figure in experimental psychology was G.I. Chelpanov (1862-1936). He put forward the concept of "empirical parallelism", which goes back to the psychophysical parallelism of Fechner and Wundt. In studies of the perception of space and time, he perfected the technique of experimentation and obtained rich empirical material. But the main merit of G.I. Chelpanov, apparently, should be considered the active introduction of experimental psychological knowledge in higher education Russia and intensive training of experimental psychologists. Since 1909, he has taught the course "Experimental Psychology" at Moscow University and at the seminary at the Moscow Psychological Institute. Since then, experimental psychology in our country has become an obligatory academic discipline in the professional training of psychologists.

The outline of the formation of EP will be flawed if we do not mention the psychological experiments with animals that have unfolded since the end of the 19th century. First, they were carried out in natural conditions, later - in laboratories. Here it is necessary to name the names of Lebokk, Morgan, Kline, pitch. And of course, the forerunner of the behaviorism of Edward Lee Thorndike (1874-1949). Ultimately, experimental work with animals resulted in a new discipline - zoopsychology, where experiment and observation are the leading research methods. The data of zoopsychology become material for another discipline - comparative psychology, a great contribution to the development of which was made by our compatriot, psychologist and biologist V.A. Wagner (1849-1934).

The term experimental psychology can have multiple meanings:

1. Under experimental psychology is understood (following W. Wundt, S. Stevens and other scientists) all scientific psychology as a system of knowledge obtained on the basis of an experimental study of the behavior of humans and animals. Scientific psychology is equated with experimental psychology and is opposed to philosophical, introspective, speculative and humanitarian psychology (P. Fress, J. Piaget).
2. Experimental psychology is sometimes practiced as a system of experimental methods and techniques implemented in specific studies (M.V. Matlin).
3. The term "experimental psychology" is often used in a broad sense to characterize the scientific discipline dealing with the problem of methods of psychological research in general.
4. Experimental psychology is understood only as the theory of psychological experiment, based on the general scientific theory of experiment and, first of all, including its planning and data processing (F.J. McGuigan).
5. Chelpanov G.I. considered experimental psychology as an academic discipline according to the methodology of psychological research, or rather, according to the methodology of experiment in psychology (see Druzhinin V.N.).
6. Experimental psychology is an independent scientific discipline that develops the theory and practice of psychological research and has as its main subject studying the system of psychological methods, among which the main attention is paid to empirical methods(Nikandrov, p. 19).

I.1. Prerequisites for the emergence of experimental psychology.

The use of the experimental method in the knowledge of human nature was not a particular problem in the middle of the 19th century.

Secondly, many natural scientists(physicists, physicians, biologists, physiologists) in their practical activities, they increasingly encountered phenomena, the understanding of which required specific knowledge about the structure of the human body, especially the work of its sense organs, motor apparatus and brain mechanisms.

Finally, thirdly, in the history of philosophy there have already been precedents for likening a person to a more or less complex mechanical device(Julien La Mettrie and Rene Descartes were especially successful in this), so the possibility of delicate experimentation in relation to a person (which has become habitual in relation to a machine) was not so odious. Since the middle of the XVIII century. in physiology, various experimental methods are extensively used: artificial stimulation of a drug or a living organ, registration or observation of the responses caused by this stimulation, and the simplest mathematical processing of the data obtained.

I.2. Start: physiological psychology

In the middle of the XIX century. The Scottish physician Marshall Hall (1790-857), who worked in London, and Pierre Florence (1794-1867), professor of natural science at the French College in Paris, studied the functions of the brain and widely used the method of extirpation (removal), when the function of a certain part of the brain is established by removing or destroying this parts followed by observation of changes in the behavior of the animal. In 1861, the French surgeon Paul Broca (18241880) proposed a clinical method: the brain of the deceased is opened and the site of its damage is found, which is considered responsible for the behavioral anomaly during the patient's lifetime. So Broca discovered the “speech center” of the third frontal gyrus of the cerebral cortex, which turned out to be damaged in a man who was unable to speak clearly during his lifetime. In 1870, Gustav Fritsch and Eduard Hitzing first used the method of electrical stimulation of the cerebral cortex (they conducted experiments with rabbits and dogs).

The development of experimental physiology led to two important circumstances that had a decisive influence on the anthropological sciences of that time.:

Factual material relating to various aspects of the vital activity of organisms increased rapidly; the data obtained in the experiments could not be established even by the most ingenious speculative way;

Many life processes that were previously the exclusive subject of religious and philosophical reflections have received new, mainly mechanistic explanations that put these processes on a par with the natural course of things.

The physiology of the nervous system, rapidly swelling with new knowledge, gradually won more and more space from philosophy. The German physicist and physiologist Hermann Helmholtz (1821-1894) moved from measuring the speed of nerve impulses to the study of vision and hearing, having already become one foot in that still unknown area, which would later be called the psychology of perception. His theory of color perception, still mentioned in all textbooks of psychology, affected not only the peripheral aspects that were under the jurisdiction of the physiology of the sense organs, but also many centrally conditioned phenomena that could not yet be controlled experimentally and fully (recall, for example, the role past experience in his concept of unconscious inferences). The same can be said for his resonance theory of auditory perception.

One fact is interesting in the scientific biography of Helmholtz. Measurements played a huge role in his experimental practice. First, he measured the speed of nerve impulses on the isole preparation. He then moved on to measuring human reaction time. here he encountered a large scatter of data not only from different, but even from the same subject. Such a behavior of the measured value did not fit into the strict deterministic scheme of thinking of the physicist-physiologist, and he refused to study the reaction time, considering this capricious measure of little reliability. The ingenious experimenter was captured by his mentality.

This happens frequently in the history of science. If then many people were engaged in sight and hearing, then, perhaps, only Ernst Weber (1795-1878) - German physiologist, whose main scientific interest was related to the physiology of the sense organs, focused on the study of skin kinesthetic sensitivity. His experiments with touch confirmed the presence of a threshold of sensations, in particular, a two-point threshold. By varying the sites of skin irritation, he showed that the value of this threshold is not the same, and explained this difference, and did not discard it as unreliable.. The thing is that, being a real experimenter, Weber not only measured thresholds, obtaining, as we now say, primary data, but mathematically processed them, obtaining secondary data not contained in the measurement procedure itself. This is especially evident in his experiments with kinesthetic sensitivity (comparison of the weight of two small weights - a standard variable). It turned out that the barely perceptible difference between the weights of the two loads is not the same for different standards. The experimenter could see this difference from the initial measurements. But Weber didn't stop there. Apparently, his skill in working with numbers, not only with subjects' stimuli, forced him to go one step further: he took the ratio of a barely perceptible difference (that is, the difference between the weights of two loads) to the value of a standard load. And to his greatest surprise, this ratio turned out to be constant for different standards! This discovery (later it became known as Weber's law) could not be made a priori, and it was not directly contained either in the experimental procedure or in the measurement results. This is the kind of creative luck that sometimes befalls thoughtful experimenters. Thanks to the works of Weber, not only the measurability of human sensations became obvious, but also the existence of strict patterns in conscious sensory experience.

When Weber, at the age of 22, lectured in physiology at the medical faculty of the University of Leipzig, Gustav Fechner, the future founder of psychophysics, entered there to study. It was 1817. The idea of ​​psychophysics, which studies the laws of connection between mental and physical phenomena, was born by Fechner in 1850. Fechner was a humanitarian by nature and was in opposition to the materialistic views that then dominated the University of Leipzig and were ardently defended by the same Weber. At the same time, he operated with very high categories, stating that the Universe has two sides: not only “shadow”, material, but also “light”, spiritual (Schultz D.P., Schultz S.E., 1998, p. 79 ). This orientation to the Universe was, apparently, the source of his scientific inspiration.

In the late 1930s, he became interested in the problem of sensations.. And then a misfortune happened to him: while studying visual afterimages, he looked at the Sun through colored glasses and injured his eyes. After that, he was in a severe depression for several years and turned to philosophical mysticism, especially to the problem of the relationship between the physical and the mental. His way out of depression was very mysterious and even mystical: “Once he had a dream, from which he clearly remembered the number 77. From this he concluded that his recovery would take 77 days. And so it happened." (Ibid., p. 80). Moreover, his depression turned into euphoria. It is at this time that the aforementioned insight occurs. Weber's lectures on the physiology of the sense organs, physical and mathematical education, the philosophical knowledge gained through suffering were integrated into a simple but ingenious idea, subsequently formulated as the main psychophysical law.

Fechner's axiomatics:

1. Feeling cannot be measured directly; the intensity of sensation is indirectly measured by the magnitude of the stimulus.

At the threshold value of the stimulus (r), the sensation intensity (S) is 0.

The magnitude of the suprathreshold stimulus (R) is measured in threshold units, that is, the magnitude of the stimulus at the absolute threshold (r).

Barely noticeable change in feeling Δ S) is a constant value and therefore can serve as a unit of measurement for any intensity of sensation.

Now it remained to determine the relationship between the unit of measurement of sensation ( Δ S) and the threshold unit of measurement of the stimulus. Fechner solved this problem in a purely mathematical way. Let's follow the logic of his reasoning.

We have two constants: ( Δ S) (axiom 4) and the Weber relation Δ R/R. (Fechner himself wrote that, while conducting his experiments, he did not yet know about Weber's work. A historical mystery remains: either Fechner was cunning, or in fact he acted independently. In science, as in everyday life, one can find both) . One constant can be expressed in terms of another:

Δ S=c( Δ R: R) (1)

This is the so-called basic Fechner formula. When measuring the threshold Δ R and Δ S- infinitesimal quantities, that is, differentials:

After integration we get:

∫dS = c ∫ dR: R , or S = c lnR + C (2)

Here the constants c and C are unknown. If S = 0 at R = r (where r is the threshold value), then expression (2) will be written as follows:

From here С = -сlnr ; we substitute it into (2) we get:

S = c lnR - c lnr = c (lnR - 1nr) = c lnr (R: r).

We pass to decimal logarithms: S = k lg (R: r) (3)

We take r as a unit of measurement, that is, r = 1; then:

S = k lg R (4)

That's what it is Fechner's basic psychophysical law. Please note that the derivation of the law was carried out by means of mathematics, and no doubts can arise here.

In Fechner's law, the unit of measurement is the threshold value of the stimulus r. This explains why Fechner paid great attention to how to determine the threshold. He developed several psychophysical methods that have become classic: the method of boundaries, the method of constant stimuli and the method of setting. You met them at practical exercises, and now we can look at these methods from the other side.

Firstly, all these methods are purely laboratory ones: here the stimuli are artificial, not much like ordinary ones; a weak touch of the skin with two needles, a barely visible spot of light, a barely audible isolated sound); and other unusual conditions (limiting concentration on one's feelings, monotonous repetition of the same actions, complete darkness or silence); and annoying monotony. If this happens in life, it is very rare, and even then in an extreme situation (for example, in a solitary prison cell). And all this is necessary for the purity of the experiment, in order to minimize or completely eliminate the impact on the subject of those factors that are not related to the procedure of the experiment. The artificiality of the experimental situation is an invariable attribute of any scientific experiment. But it raises the not-so-pleasant problem of the applicability of laboratory data to real, non-laboratory situations. In the natural sciences, this problem is far from being as dramatic as in experimental psychology. We will return to it a little later.

Secondly, the specific or instantaneous value of the threshold is of little interest and hardly informative in itself. Usually the threshold is measured for the sake of something. For example, by its value we can judge a person's sensitivity to these influences: the lower the threshold, the higher the sensitivity; comparing the thresholds obtained different time the same subject, we can judge their dynamics over time or dependence on certain conditions; by comparing the thresholds of different subjects, it is possible to estimate the range of individual differences in sensitivity for a given modality, i.e. In other words, the context in which the laboratory method is applied significantly expands its semantic scope, hence its pragmatic value. It was this contextual factor that made Fechner's methods a powerful tool for solving other, already non-Fechner problems, not only in psychophysics, but in general psychology.

THE BIRTH OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

At the origins of experimental psycho ology was another outstanding German scientist - Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920). He was also born into a pastor's family, received a medical education, knew anatomy, physiology, physics and chemistry. From 1857 to 1864 he worked as a laboratory assistant at Helmholtz (he has already been mentioned). Wundt had his own home laboratory. Being engaged at this time in physiology, he comes to the idea of ​​psychology as an independent science. He substantiates this idea in his book "On the theory of sensory perception", which was published in small portions from 1858 to 1862. It is here that the term experimental psychology, introduced by him, is first encountered.

The beginning of the emergence of experimental psychology is conditionally considered 1878, since it was during this period that W. Wundt founded the first laboratory of experimental psychology in Germany. Outlining the prospects for building psychology as an integral science, he assumed the development of two non-overlapping areas in it: the natural science, based on experiment, and the cultural-historical, in which leading role called to play psychological methods the study of culture ("psychology of peoples"). According to his theory, natural scientific experimental methods could only be applied to the elementary, lowest level of the psyche. It is not the soul itself that is subject to experimental research, but only its external manifestations. Therefore, in his laboratory, mainly sensations and the motor reactions caused by them, as well as peripheral and binocular vision, color perception, etc. were studied (Psychodiagnostics. A.S. Luchinin, 2004).

Theoretical foundations of science.

Wundt's psychology was based on the experimental methods of the natural sciences - primarily physiology.

Consciousness was the subject of research. The basis of conceptual views were empiricism and associationism.

Wundt believed that consciousness is the essence of the psyche - a complex and composite phenomenon, and the method of analysis or reductionism is best suited for its study. He pointed out that the first step in the study of any phenomenon should be a complete description of the constituent elements.

He focused the main attention on the ability of the brain to self-organize, Wundt called this system voluntarism (volitional act, desire) - the concept according to which the mind has the ability to organize the process of thinking, translating it into a qualitatively more high level.

Wundt attached great importance to the mind's ability to actively synthesize its constituent elements at a high level.

Psychology should study first of all direct experience - which is cleared of all kinds of interpretations and pre-experimental knowledge (“I have a toothache”).

This experience is purified from the mediated experience that knowledge gives us, and is not a component of direct experience (we know that the forest is green, the sea is blue, the sky is blue).

The main method of the new science was introspection. Since psychology is the science of the experience of consciousness, it means that the method must also consist of observing one's own consciousness.

Experiments on introspection, or internal perception, were carried out in the Leipzig laboratory according to strict rules:

exact determination of the beginning (moment) of the experiment;

observers should not reduce their level of attention;

the experiment must be checked several times;

the conditions of the experiment should be acceptable for changing and controlling the change in stimulus factors.

Introspective analysis was not associated with qualitative introspection (when the subject described his inner experience), but with the subject's direct ideas about the magnitude, intensity, range of the physical stimulus, reaction time, etc. Thus, conclusions about the elements and processes of consciousness were drawn from objective assessments.

Elements of the experience of consciousness

Wundt outlined the following main tasks of experimental psychology:

analyze the processes of consciousness through the study of its basic elements;

Find out how these elements are connected;

Establish the principles according to which such a connection occurs.

Wundt believed that sensations are the primary form of experience. Sensations arise when some irritant acts on the sense organs and the resulting impulses reach the brain. The limitation of this position is that he did not distinguish between sensations and mental images arising from them.

Feelings are another form of primary experience. Sensations and feelings arise simultaneously in the process of the same direct experience. Moreover, feelings directly follow sensations:

Irritant feeling feeling

In the process of conducting self-analysis sessions, Wundt developed a three-dimensional model of feelings (experiment with a metronome).

A three-dimensional model of feelings is built in a system of three dimensions:

“pleasure - discomfort” (when the beats of the metronome are rhythmic - very frequent);

"tension - relaxation" (very rare blows when you expect a blow, and relaxation that comes after it);

"rise (of feelings) - fading" (frequent pace of beats - slow).

Therefore, any feeling is located in a certain range of three-dimensional space.

Emotions are a complex mix of elemental feelings that can be measured using a 3D continuum. Thus, Wundt reduced emotions to elements of thinking, but this theory did not stand the test of time.

Having founded a laboratory and a journal, Wundt, along with experimental research, turned to philosophy, logic, and aesthetics.

He believed that the simplest mental processes - sensations, perceptions, feelings, emotions - must be studied with the help of laboratory research. And for higher mental processes - learning, memory, language, which are associated with aspects of cultural education, other research methods are needed, not experimental, but borrowed from sociology and anthropology.

According to Wundt, psychology begins with the direct experience of the subject. The very division of human knowledge into the immediate mediated Wundt borrowed from philosophy. But he put these concepts in a different meaning. For the philosopher, sensual and intuitive knowledge are direct, and rational knowledge is mediated. Wundt believed that sensory knowledge can also be mediated, for example, the past experience of the subject, his previously acquired knowledge about the perceived object. Perception, according to Wundt, is a natural process, entirely due to three determinants:

physical stimulation

the anatomical structure of the perceiving organ,

the individual's past experience.

Wundt identified three basic categories underlying mental phenomena: sensation (sensation), perception (perception), feeling (feeling). Sensation is the simplest element of conscious experience; it fixes a separate property of the perceived object, not the object as a whole. This situation is rare. Usually, the sense organs simultaneously react to several properties of an object, therefore, many elementary sensations are present in the mind at the same time. Combining together, they give a new quality to the perception of a holistic object.. In part, such association can be carried out automatically, passively, in addition to the will of the subject, thanks to the mechanism of association. Associative complexes form the field of perception. In this field there is a part of the content to which the attention of the subject is directed. And here Wundt introduces the concept of apperception, which is very important in his concept.

Unlike automatic, passive perception, apperception is an arbitrary act, entirely controlled by the will of the subject. Thanks to apperception, the elements included in the field of perception can be grouped and regrouped by the will of the subject into qualitatively new integral formations, including those that have not previously been encountered in the experience of the subject. Wundt called this creative synthesis. Not only perception, but our whole mental life is made up of the dynamics of the transitions of perception and apperception into each other. In the edition cited, Wundt cites the most interesting life observations and his own experimental data confirming this idea of ​​his.

The subject of psychological research, as Wundt imagined it, turned out to be quite complex. Even if we take only the process of perception, a fantastically complex picture emerges. Indeed, each of its three determinants has many possible states, of which only a tiny fraction can be controlled. The variety of specific combinations and interactions that these determinants enter into is also enormous.

Not only in the humanities, but also in the natural sciences the path from simple to complex often turns out not so much as a guiding principle for a particular study, but as a way of presenting its results for those who are new to them. And here the illusion arises that the cognition of the text, the cognition of the reality described in it, is one and the same, that is, the path from the simple to the complex. In fact, the knowledge of reality begins with the awareness of something unknown, some kind of problem, that is, just something complex.. In the mind of the researcher, this complex begins to take on its specific shape in the form of a new construction. It may include both already known and assumed, hypothetical elements or relations between them.

The experiment is just designed to reveal the hypothetical to the real. Wundt was also guided by the principle from the simple to the complex. But the problem for him was that it was not he himself who had to find this simple, but the person whose mental processes he studied. If you want to understand what is happening in my mind when you show me a red rose, then you will not be satisfied with my answer: “I see a red rose”, because this is not the beginning or middle of the process, its predictable and obvious end. Wundt believed that the most elementary elements of consciousness can be detected using specially trained self-observation, or internal perception. In essence, it was a kind of introspection method, the beginning of which was laid by Socrates. But it turned out, as Wundt himself later became convinced, that even trained introspection was not capable of solving the problem he had set.

In Wundt's university laboratories, which he set up to carry out his extensive research program, a variety of methods were used. Among them, the reaction time method was especially popular. It should be considered in more detail, especially since various modifications of "mental chronometry" are still used in many experimental works.

Investigating the reaction time, Wundt tried to determine the time parameters of the four "elements of the psyche" he singled out - perception, apperception, recognition, and association. Actually, only these elements, according to Wundt, could be the subject of experimental psychology.

Already in the 17th century, various ways of becoming psychological knowledge and formed ideas about rational and empirical psychology. In the 19th century Psychological laboratories appeared and the first empirical studies, called experimental ones, were carried out. In the first laboratory of experimental psychology of W. Wundt, the method of experimental introspection was used (introspection is a person's self-observation of his own mental activity). L. Fechner developed the foundations for constructing a psychophysical experiment, they were considered as ways of collecting data on the sensations of the subject when the physical characteristics of the stimuli presented to him changed. G. Ebbinghaus conducted research on the patterns of memorization and forgetting, in which techniques are traced that have become standards for experimentation. A number of special techniques for obtaining psychological data, in particular the so-called method of associations, preceded the development of experimental schemes. Behavioral research (behaviorism is a direction in psychology of the 20th century, ignoring the phenomena of consciousness, the psyche and completely reducing human behavior to the physiological reactions of the body to the influence of the external environment.), Paying primary attention to the problem of managing stimulus factors, developed requirements for the construction of a behavioral experiment

Back in the 19th century, positivism proclaimed that since science takes into account only facts, and not “things in themselves,” experiment is the most accurate way to establish fats. Experiment is the core of the empirical approach to knowledge.

As early as the 17th century, ways of forming scientific psychological knowledge were discussed and ideas about empirical psychology were formed.

In the 19th century, the philosophy of positivism proclaimed that since science takes into account only facts, and not "things in themselves", the most accurate way to establish veils is experiment.

Psychologists have adopted the above slogan. In the 19th century psychological laboratories appeared and the first empirical studies, called experimental ones, were carried out. In the first laboratory of experimental psychology of W. Wundt, the method of experimental introspection was used (introspection is a person's self-observation of his own mental activity).

L. Fechner developed the foundations for constructing a psychophysical experiment, they were considered as ways of collecting data on the sensations of the subject when the physical characteristics of the stimuli presented to him changed.

G. Ebbinghaus conducted research on the patterns of memorization and forgetting, in which techniques are traced that have become standards for experimentation. A number of special techniques for obtaining psychological data, in particular the so-called method of associations, preceded the development of experimental exposure schemes.

Wundt laid the foundations, and Titchener developed a powerful trend in psychology called "structuralism" or "structural psychology". This trend was later opposed by "Gestaltism" and "Functionalism".

Gestalt psychologists have criticized Wundt's views of consciousness as a device of elements, or, as they put it, "of bricks and cement." Functional psychology, based on the evolutionary theory of Charles Darwin, instead of studying the elements of consciousness and its structure, is interested in consciousness as a tool for adapting the organism to the environment, that is, its function in human life. However, consciousness is interpreted from the positions of introspectionism - as a set of phenomena studied through self-observation. The most prominent representatives of functionalism: T. Ribot (France), E. Claparede (Switzerland), D. Dewey (USA - Chicago School), R. Woodworth (USA - Columbian School).

Nevertheless, it was Wundt and his school who determined the further development of psychology along the path of experiment. Thus, the psychologists of the famous Wurzburg school, close to functionalism, expanded the boundaries of the laboratory experiment for the study of thinking and will, for which, by the way, Wundt himself blamed them. The method of introspection was deepened by them and called "experimental self-observation". The school was headed by a student of Wundt, the German O. Kulpe (1862-1915).

Huge contribution the German scientist G. Ebbinghaus, who did not share the views of Wundt and his research method, introduced experimental psychology. Under the influence of Fechner's psychophysics, G. Ebbinghaus put forward as the task of psychology the establishment of the fact that a mental phenomenon depends on a certain factor. In this case, a reliable indicator is not the subject's statement about his experiences, but his real achievements in one or another activity proposed by the experimenter. The subject was not asked about his subjective impressions. Thus, significant progress was made by Ebbinghaus in the study of memory and skills. The "Ebbinghaus curve", which shows the dynamics of the forgetting process, is still used in science. The experiment turned to the study of its internal laws.

In Russia, the introspective approach was criticized by I. M. Sechenov, who put forward a program for building a "new" psychology based on an objective method and principle of the development of the psyche. Despite the fact that he worked as a physiologist and physician, his works and ideas provided a powerful methodological basis for psychology as well. Natural science theory of psychological regulation I.M. Sechenov in the form of a reflex theory gave an explanatory principle to the phenomena of mental life. And his research practice developed and strengthened the authority of experimental methods in the physiological and psychological fields.

Late XIX v. are marked by an increase in the instrumental base of psychology: a “test experiment” is added to the research experiment. If the task of the research experiment was to obtain data on a particular phenomenon or psychological patterns, then the task of the second experiment was to obtain data characterizing a person (a group of people). In fact, these are various tests, the results of which give reason to judge the level of development of certain qualities of a person. Thus, the test entered experimental psychology as a full-fledged method. Its main advantage from the very beginning was its practical orientation.

The ancestor of test methods is considered to be psychologist James McKean Cattell, who applied them in the study of a wide range of mental functions (sensory, intellectual, motor, etc.). He discovered the phenomenon of anticipation (anticipation). Further, the test becomes the leading psychodiagnostic method.

Modern experimental psychology is understood as a field of psychological knowledge based on the application of experiment.

Thus, the application of the experimental method to the study of mental phenomena played a decisive role in the development of psychology as an independent science and its separation from philosophy.

1.2 Experiment as a core method of experimental psychology

Experiment – it scientific method collecting facts in specially created conditions that ensure the active manifestation of the studied mental phenomena, this is a method of studying a certain phenomenon in controlled conditions. Popper's criterion puts forward the possibility of setting up an experiment as the main difference between a scientific theory and a pseudoscientific one. Usually, an experiment is carried out as part of a scientific study and serves to test a hypothesis, to establish causal relationships between phenomena. The experiment is the basis of the empirical approach in modern scientific knowledge.

V.A. Drummer defines an experiment in psychology as "the study of mental phenomena under special experimental conditions".

Experiment differs from observation by active interaction with the object under study.

Depending on the characteristics of the research problems being solved, laboratory and natural experiments can be ascertaining or formative.

An ascertaining experiment is an experiment that establishes the existence of some immutable fact or phenomenon. An experiment becomes ascertaining if the researcher sets the task of identifying the current state and the level of formation of a certain property of the phenomenon under study, the actual level of development of the studied property in the subject or experimental group is determined.

A formative experiment is an experiment in which the study of subjects is carried out directly in the process of training and education, with the aim of actively forming the mental characteristics to be studied.

The creator of the holistic doctrine of the formative psychological and pedagogical experiment is V.V. Davydov. The widespread use of the formative experiment is associated with innovations and changes in the psychological and pedagogical process. The formative experiment, along with the study of the mechanisms of the formation of a mental property, contributes to the solution of educational problems.

Synonymous with the formative experiment in the psychological and pedagogical literature is the psychological and pedagogical experiment. A psychological-pedagogical experiment is an experimental study that uses the methods of psychology for pedagogical purposes. It is based on the approach to the development of the psyche as a phenomenon driven by training and education. The essence of the psychological and pedagogical experiment lies in the fact that at first they study the features of the mental activity of children (not only the registration of the highlighted facts, but also the disclosure of patterns, mechanisms, dynamics, development trends). Then, on this basis, special training is organized to optimize the identified processes and promote them to a higher level.

The psychological and pedagogical experiment establishes the level of development of memory and other aspects of the mental activity of the subjects, and studies the possibilities and ways that ensure the improvement of this activity. Here, the study of the subjects is carried out in the process of learning, the influence of training and education on the development of the mental activity of children, on the formation of certain personality traits is traced. That is why he provides a combination of psychological research with pedagogical search and design of the most effective forms of the educational process.

Let us give an example of such an experiment. When studying the characteristics of the memory of younger schoolchildren, it was found that children often memorize material mechanically, instead of meaningfully memorizing it. The reason for the established fact was the children's ignorance of the methods of meaningful memorization, with the help of which an understanding of the material and its logical assimilation are achieved. Teaching children the techniques of semantic grouping educational material, the experimenter achieved that schoolchildren began to memorize not mechanically, but meaningfully.

To study the processes of education and upbringing in pedagogy, a complex pedagogical experiment is used, which can be probing or testing (testing assumptions, particular hypotheses, which requires obtaining or clarifying individual facts), as well as creative or transformative, associated with testing general hypotheses, developed models and structures, complex innovations.
If we set the goal of cognition of a phenomenon as such, beyond its comparison with other phenomena, then an absolute complex pedagogical experiment is organized. If the experiment is aimed at choosing the most optimal conditions or means pedagogical activity, then it will be of a comparative nature and therefore is called a comparative experiment. In turn, a comparative experiment can be organized in such a way that the experimental group (experimental object) is compared with the control group, which was not affected by the experimental changes; it is possible to organize a comparative experiment as a variable one, when there is no control object, but several experimental options are compared with each other in order to select the best one. A mixed variant is also possible, in which several experimental groups and one or more control groups are created. The experiment is characterized by:

2. Creation of a preconceived artificial situation in which the studied property manifests itself best and can be more accurately and easily evaluated.

To obtain more objective research data, it is necessary to provide equality of all conditions, factors under which a particular condition occurs. Only the independent variable should change(for example, the types of students' activities in the lesson: auditory perception of educational material; auditory perception of educational material and its grouping; independent completion of the proposed tasks and other activities of children).

In experimental studies, it is important that all subjects be equal in age, health, and motives for participation. Motives for participation vary only when it is their influence on one or another that is being studied. mental phenomenon.

The reliability of the tested hypothesis is achieved either by repeated repetition of experiments, or by a sufficient number of subjects with subsequent mathematical processing.

The reliability of the tested hypothesis is achieved by repeated repetition of experiments, or due to a sufficient number of subjects with subsequent mathematical processing.

The results of each experiment are recorded, recorded general information about the subjects, the nature of the experimental task, the time of the experiment, the quantitative and qualitative results of the experiment, and the characteristics of the subjects are indicated.

It is important to note that experimental psychology is currently not limited to a single experiment.

Conclusions on the first chapter

1. The application of the experimental method to the study of mental phenomena played a decisive role in the development of psychology as an independent science and its separation from philosophy.

2. Modern experimental psychology is understood as a field of psychological knowledge based on the application of experiment; experimental psychology is currently not limited to experiment alone.

3. Experiment –

1. The active position of the researcher himself. The researcher can cause a mental phenomenon as many times as necessary to test the hypothesis put forward.

Depending on the characteristics of the research problems being solved, laboratory and natural experiments.

Chapter 2

2.1 general characteristics psychological experiment

Experiment is one of the main methods of scientific research. In general scientific terms experiment is defined as a special research method aimed at testing scientific and applied hypotheses, requiring strict logic of proof and based on reliable facts. In an experiment, some artificial (experimental) situation is always created, the causes of the phenomena being studied are singled out, the consequences of the actions of these causes are strictly controlled and evaluated, and the connections between the phenomena under study are clarified.

An experiment as a method of psychological research corresponds to the above definition, but has some specifics. Many authors single out the “subjectivity of the object” of research as a key feature of a psychological experiment. A person as an object of cognition has activity, consciousness, and thus can influence both the process of his study and its result. Therefore, special ethical requirements are imposed on the situation of an experiment in psychology, and the experiment itself can be considered as a process of communication between the experimenter and the subject.

The task of a psychological experiment is to make an internal mental phenomenon accessible to objective observation. At the same time, the phenomenon under study should be adequately and unambiguously manifested in external behavior, which is achieved through targeted control of the conditions for its occurrence and course.

2.1 Structure of a psychological experiment

2) experimenter;

The response of the subject is an external reaction, by which one can judge the processes taking place in his inner, subjective space. These processes themselves are the result of the stimulation and conditions of experience acting on him.

If the response (reaction) of the subject is denoted by the symbol R, and the effects of the experimental situation on him (as a combination of stimulation effects and experimental conditions) - by the symbol S, then their ratio can be expressed by the formula R = =f (S). That is, the reaction is a function of the situation. But this formula does not take into account the active role of the psyche, the personality of a person. (P). In reality, a person's reaction to a situation is always mediated by the psyche, the personality.

An example of the course of the experiment on the specified structure is given in Appendix 1.

Conclusions on the second chapter

Experiment is one of the main methods of scientific research. The task of a psychological experiment is to make an internal mental phenomenon accessible to objective observation.

The main components of the experiment are:

1) subject (studied person or group);

2) experimenter;

3) stimulation (method of influence on the subject chosen by the experimenter);

4) the subject's response to stimulation (his mental reaction);

5) conditions of the experiment (additional to the stimulation of the impact, which can affect the reactions of the subject).

Conclusion

The purpose of the study was to study the experiment as the leading method of experimental psychology.

In the course of the analysis of scientific literature, the concept of an experiment and its features are revealed, the use of an experiment as a scientific method in psychology is substantiated, and the structure of a modern experiment is studied.

Experiment – this is a scientific method of collecting facts in specially created conditions that ensure the active manifestation of the studied mental phenomena; this is a method of studying a certain phenomenon under controlled conditions. Experiment differs from observation by active interaction with the object under study. An experiment in psychology is understood as the study of mental phenomena under special experimental conditions. The experiment is characterized by:

1. The active position of the researcher himself. The researcher can cause a mental phenomenon as many times as necessary to test the hypothesis put forward.

2. Creation of a preconceived artificial situation in which the studied property manifests itself best and can be more accurately and easily evaluated.

The main components of the experiment are:

1) subject (studied person or group);

2) experimenter;

3) stimulation (method of influence on the subject chosen by the experimenter);

4) the subject's response to stimulation (his mental reaction);

5) conditions of the experiment (additional to the stimulation of the impact, which can affect the reactions of the subject).

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By experimental psychology is meant

1. all scientific psychology as a system of knowledge obtained on the basis of an experimental study of the behavior of humans and animals. (W. Wundt, S. Stevenson, etc.) Scientific psychology is equated with experimental psychology and is opposed to philosophical, introspective, speculative and humanitarian versions of psychology.

2. Experimental psychology is sometimes interpreted as a system of experimental methods and techniques implemented and specific research. (M.V. Matlin).

3. The term "Experimental Psychology" is used by psychologists to characterize the scientific discipline dealing with the problem of methods of psychological research in general.

4. Experimental psychology is understood only as the theory of psychological experiment, based on the general scientific theory of experiment and, first of all, including its planning and data processing. (F.J. McGuigan).

Experimental psychology covers not only the study of the general patterns of the course of mental processes, but also individual variations in sensitivity, reaction time, memory, associations, etc.

The task of the experiment is not just to establish or ascertain causal relationships, but to explain the origin of these relationships. The subject of experimental psychology is man. Depending on the goals of the experiment, the characteristics of the group of subjects (gender, age, health, etc.), tasks can be creative, labor, play, educational, etc.

Yu.M. Zabrodin believes that the basis of the experimental method is the procedure of controlled change of reality in order to study it, allowing the researcher to come into direct contact with it.

History of development of experimental psychology

Already in the 17th century, various ways of developing psychological knowledge were discussed and ideas about rational and empirical psychology were formed. In the 19th century Psychological laboratories appeared and the first empirical studies, called experimental ones, were carried out. In the first laboratory of experimental psychology of W. Wundt, the method of experimental introspection was used ( introspection- self-observation of a person over his own mental activity). L. Fechner developed the foundations for constructing a psychophysical experiment, they were considered as ways of collecting data on the sensations of the subject when the physical characteristics of the stimuli presented to him changed. G. Ebbinghaus conducted research on the patterns of memorization and forgetting, in which techniques are traced that have become standards for experimentation. A number of special techniques for obtaining psychological data, in particular the so-called method of associations, preceded the development of experimental schemes. Behavioral Studies ( behaviorism- a direction in the psychology of the 20th century, ignoring the phenomena of consciousness, the psyche and completely reducing human behavior to the physiological reactions of the body to the influence of the external environment.), giving priority to the problem of managing stimulus factors, developed requirements for the construction of a behavioral experiment.

Thus, experimental psychology was prepared by the study of elementary mental functions, which was widely developed in the middle of the 19th century - sensations, perception, reaction time. These works led to the emergence of the idea of ​​the possibility of creating experimental psychology as a special science, different from physiology and philosophy. The first master exp. psychology is rightly called c. Wundt, who founded the Institute of Psychology in Leipzig in 1879.

The founder of the American exp. psychology is called S. Hall, who studied for 3 years in Leipzig in the laboratory of W. Wundt. He then became the first president of the American Psychological Association. Among other researchers, James Cattal should be mentioned, who also received his doctorate from W. Wundt (in 1886). He was the first to introduce the concept of an intellectual test.

In France, T. Ribot formulated an idea about the subject of experimental psychology, which, in his opinion, should not deal with metaphysics or a discussion of the essence of the soul, but with the identification of laws and immediate causes of mental phenomena.

In domestic psychology, one of the first examples of methodological work on the path of understanding the standards of experimentation is the concept of natural experiment by A.F. Lazursky, which he proposed in 1910. on the 1st All-Russian Congress on experimental pedagogy.

Since the 70s, the training course "Experimental Psychology" has been taught in Russian universities. In the "State educational standard of higher vocational education"For 1995, he is given 200 hours. The tradition of teaching experimental psychology at Russian universities was introduced by Professor G.I. institute (now - the Psychological Institute of the Russian Academy of Education).

Chelpanov considered experimental psychology as an academic discipline according to the methodology of psychological research, or rather, according to the methodology of experiment in psychology.