Edward Titchener

Edward Titchener

Introduction

Titchener was born in England in Chichester. He belonged to an ancient but impoverished family, and accustomed from childhood to rely on his extraordinary mental powers, through which could make for scholarships to continue their education. He first studied at the College and then at Oxford University, where he studied philosophy and classical literature, and later was promoted to an assistant researcher at the department of physiology. While at Oxford, became interested in theories of Wundt, Titchener, but this interest is not divided and is not encouraged by any of his colleagues and mentors. It is not surprising that he made a trip to Leipzig - the then Mecca of many pilgrims, scholars - where he studied under Wundt and received his doctorate in 1892 (Hothersall, 2004). .

Contribution

Edward Bradford Titchener, known during his lifetime as the father of experimental psychology in America, brought to the United States a "new psychology", Wilhelm Wundt's experimental psychology, and others, thus affecting the transition from mental philosophy to psychology in the form in which it exists today. His most significant contribution is undoubtedly lies in the fact that he gave the scientific status of psychology. With this purpose, he published his laboratory diary - a four volume Experimental Psychology (1901-5), is widely used and has become a model for numerous imitators. He has developed experimental methods and scientific apparatus, and insisted on the need for careful preparation of experimental psychologists. Defended by under his leadership, doctoral dissertations were always relevant. Titchener never betrayed introspection, structuralism views. And though by themselves they do not play an important role in modern psychology, it was learned a systematic, thorough and clear analysis that Titchener cultivated (Hothersall, 2004). .

Yet he never lost interest in the research. He compared the basic psychological elements, the sensations and ideas, ...