Thinking: An Introduction To Its Experimental Psychology

M ETHUEN’S MANUALS OF M ODERN PSYCHOLOGY Edited by C. A. MACE Thinking AN IN TRO D U CTIO N EX PERIM EN TA L TO ITS PSYCHOLOGY GEORGE HUMPHREY Professor of Psychology in the University of Oxford A systematic presentation and analysis of the experimental work on the “ thought processes”. The parallel between pre-experimental Associationism and conditioned reflex theory is first examined and it is shown that contemporary criticism of each independently followed the same lines. There follows an exposition and defence of the powerful and massive Wurzburg work, which modern psychologists tend to neglect. * The contributions of Selz and of the Gestalt school are examined at some length. The relation of muscular activity, and of language, to thinking are extensively dis­ cussed; the various methods used in the investigation of generalizing are described, and their chief results indicated. A summary brings together briefly the main features of the book. The book presents theory as it has de­ veloped out of experiment. It reviews and interprets the experimentation that has been done in the hope that more may be done. It deliberately avoids “philosophical” dis­ cussion, though the author hopes that the experimental background which it provides may prove to be of interest to philosophers as well as to psychologists. Cat. No. 5363/U 21$. net THI NKI NG An Introduction to its Experimental Psychology GEORGE HUMPHREY Director o f the Institute o f Experimental Psychology and Professor o f Psychology in the University o f Oxford LONDON • METHUEN & CO. LTD. NEW YORK • JOHN WILEY & SONS INC. First published in 1951 C atalogue No. 5363/U PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN TO MY WIFE PREFACE his book was begun in 1934 at the suggestion of Professor F. C. Bartlett.1 The first draft was practically finished when war broke out, and for various reasons the book had to be laid aside for nearly ten years. The whole manuscript has now been revised and a good deal of it rewritten. Those who have read the manuscript in duplicated form at various stages have made many suggestions about its content. Some, for instance, have urged that the section on the Wtirzburgers, which now occupies three chapters, should be deleted or at least shortened. Others have been equally urgent that these chapters should be left intact. With the exception of some pruning where the argument seemed to have become diffuse, the Wurzburg chapters have been left substantially as they were originally written, and for the following reasons. The contribution of this group still stands in its own right as the most massive, sustained, and acute experimental attack on the problem of thought. It is true that the vocabulary, and behind it the general theory, employed by these men is now out of date, and that for this reason their work often seems arid and devoid of significance for modern psychology. But actually they were concerned with a set of general problems that are still very much alive to-day. Of these, the most important can thus be stated: Can organic response be reduced without remainder to response strictly correlated with individual receptors ? The problem has a long history and is still being debated. At the present time, for example, Hull and his pupils are maintaining a theory of behaviour built on the foundations laid by Pavlov, and which maintains that behaviour can be explained in terms of funda­ mentally unchanged motor response to specific receptoral stimula­ tion.2 The controversy concerning “imageless thought” debated the same problem, couched, however, in terms of experience. The Wtirzburgers were concerned with the question whether Experience can be built up out of experiences referable to particular sense modalities. The problem is the