Thinking and The New Psychology: Imageless Thought: Psychologie. Leipzig: Engelmann, 1874
Thinking and The New Psychology: Imageless Thought: Psychologie. Leipzig: Engelmann, 1874
Thinking and The New Psychology: Imageless Thought: Psychologie. Leipzig: Engelmann, 1874
In the first place all analytic work in psychology was to be based on the
notion that "there is only one kind of causal explanation in psychology ; and
that is the derivation of more complex psychical process ones "f. Second,
experimental study was possible only when external manipulation of conditions
was possible, that is, it was restricted to relations between stimulus and
consciousness in the simplest sens . Mental products-including complex thought-
"are of too variable a character to be the sub-
132
The nineteenth century thus passed without any significant experimental work
being undertaken on these "higher psychical processes.-
The slack created by Wundts dicta was taken up with a vengeance at the
University of Würzburg. Karl Marbe and Oswald Külpe triggered one of the most
active periods in the investigation of human thought; the former provided much of
the experimental and conceptual impetus, the latter-though credited with the
leadership of the Würzburg school-was more concerned with philosophical
questions and generally encouraged the,direction of the laboratory investigations.
The first paper to come out of this new school was by Mayer and Orth in - 1901.
They, like the other members of the Würzburg group, assumed much of the
associationist theory whieh preceded them, but in the course of a study of
qualitative aspects of the associational process-initiated by Marbe-they stumbled
across an unexpected finding. While examining the thought processes intervening
between a stimulus word and the subjects reaction, they found that subjects
frequently reported a kind of conscious experience that was neither an image nor
an awareness of an act of will or choice. They also noted that sometimes
associations were made to the stimulus word without any conscious processes
whatsoever, and although this finding might seem to be troublesome for a theory
of thinking based on the association of images, this aspect of the problem seemed
not to bother them. They were struck, however, by those conscious processes that
seemed to be completely imageless. Since their subjects could not describe these
processes beyond saying that they had them, Mayer and Orth were in turn helpless
to say anything about them. As a solution, they
This seemingly negative finding was an extremely important one. First of all, it
was an entering wedge into the closed ranks of association theory. For if thinking
consists of associations between images-asserted since Aristotle's time-how can
there be thought with no images present? What mediates the obviously meaningful
response to the stimulus word? Perhaps even more important, however, was that
Mayer and Orth were forced to invent, albeit reluctantly, a new theoretical term. In
the face of their subjects being unable to describe what was going on, they were
forced to remove themselves from the subjects' theorizing and to invent a term of
their own. This is not to say that theoretical terms were alien to psychologists or
that they were invented by the Würzburgers. Rather, this was the major step
toward letting the subjects' behavior dictate the necessity for inventing such a
term. just as in other fields of psychology, the theory of thinking was forced to
invent theoretical concepts to bridge an introspective void.
4 Alfred Binet, working in France at the same time as the Würzburgers in Germany, came
to the same conclusion with regard to imageless thought (L'éftude expérimentale de
1'intelligence, Paris, 1903). He stated his position even more strongly, saying that elaborate
images such as found in daydreaming were incompatible with the rapid processes of
thought. He once illustrated the inadequacy of the image theory by rernarking that with a
million dollar thought one only has a nickel's worth of images.
At the same time it must be made quite clear that many different experiences are
subsumed under the concept of association and that facts and categories that are
derived from one group of associations cannot be simply transferred to others.
Qualitative investigations and new attempts-at the categorization of associations
must at first be limited to a certain class of associative processes, and only later
can the question be asked whether the same facts can be found within other classes
and whether the same categories make sense there.
On the basis of such considerations, Dr. Marbe has set us the task of examining the
associations that arise when the subject reacts with a spoken word to a word called
out to him, and to attempt to find a useful categorization of these associations.
can become acquainted, as precisely as possible, with those processes which the
observer experiences during the experiment.
Since it seemed likely that the qualitative differences among the associations to be
examined would be reflected in their association [reaction] times, we incorporated
appropriate time measurements into our experiment. In particular, our experiments
pursued the following sequence:
After having attracted the observer's attention with a "ready' signal, the
experimenter called out the stimulus word and activated a stop watch at the same
time. As soon as the subject had begun to pronounce the response word, the watch
was stopped. The observer then reported all his conscious processes which had
taken place from the moment of the presentation of the stimulus word up to the
end of his reaction. These reports were recorded by the experimenter. The
association time, obtained from the stop watch, was then also noted in the
protocol. [There follows an apology and justification for using a clock with
divisions no finer than a fifth of a second.] . . . During the entire experimental
period the observer closed his eyes in order to avoid disturbing or influencing the
associative process through visual perceptions. [There follows a description of the
primarily monosyllabic nouns that were used as stimulus words as well as a
description of the number and identity of experimenters and subjects (N = 4).] ...
An examination of the results showed, first, that for a number of associations the
stimulus word acted directly to elicit the response, i.e., without any conscious
processes mediating the link between stimulus and response word. We shall
designate these responses as responses without intervening conscious processes in
contrast to those where psychic events are interposed between stimulus and
response word.
We next set ourselves the task of determining the relative frequency and duration
of these associations. -[There follows some description of the method of
determining mean latency values and of the tables that contain the relative
frequency and duration of these two types of associative processes.] ...
The first table seems to show that associations with intervening conscious
processes generally appear more frequently than those
without intervening conscious processes [by ratios from 13:1 to 11]. Despite large
individual differences, it is quite clear that associations with intervening conscious
processes show relatively longer durations than those without intervening
conscious processes.... [The same results were obtained in a second series which
also showed that], despite obvious individual differences, the associations with
intervening conscious processes are more frequent and take place more slowly
than those without intervening conscious processes.
The next tables are concerned with a more detailed classification of the
associations with intervening conscious processes. Internal psychic events-that is,
conscious processes exclusive of perceptions-are divided into images, which may
be more or less complex and more or less characterized by feeling tone, and acts of
will, which also may be more or less complex and more or less accompanied by
feeling tone. For the time being, we do not want to take any position on the
question whether acts of will can be derived from images and feelings, much less
would we want to answer this question in the negative. Apart from these two
classes of conscious processes, we must introduce a third group of conscious
events which has not been adequately stressed by contemporary psychology and to
the recognition of which we were-in the course of our experiment-forcibly
directed. The subjects very frequently reported that they experienced certain
conscious processes which they could describe neither as definite images nor as
acts of the will. Mayer, serving as a subject, made the observation that following
the stimulus word "meter" there occurred a peculiar conscious process, not further
definable, which was followed by the spoken word "trochee." In other cases, the
subject was able to describe these psychic events more clearly. For example, Orth
observed that the stimulus word "mustard" released just such a peculiar conscious
process, which he thought might be characterized as "a memory of an idiomatic
expression." This was followed by the response "grain." In all such cases,
however, the subject was unable to find in his consciousness the slightest trace of
the presence of those images which he used in his report of the psychic events.
Despite their obviously quite different qualities
Our data indicated that frequently only one psychic event intervenes between
stimulus and response word. For example, one subject reported that the stimulus
word "crayon" ["Stift"-which has a variety of different meanings] was followed by
a very clear visual image of a friend of that name, whereupon the response
"student followed. The protocols also show that two conscious processes may
intervene between stimulus and response. For example, for one subject the
stimulus word 'lead" evoked a clear visual image of a flat, light gray piece of lead;
this was followed by the acoustic-motoric word image "heavy." which on its part
produced the response "heavy." Finally, our results showed that even three and
more conscious processes may intervene between stimulus and response word.
[There follow tables showing the relative frequency with which one, two, three,
and more intervening conscious events were reported by subjects, as well as the
respective reaction times.]
As our next task, we decided to investigate in greater detail those responses where
only one conscious process intervened between stimulus and response.
Our results show that this one psychic event is not infrequently a word image. For
example, for one subject, the stimulus word
. soul" evoked the acoustic-motoric word image " body " which then produced the
association "spirit" The one intervening conscious process was also frequently
theimage of an object. For example, one subject reported that following the
stimulus word "chimney" the visual image of a chimney-sweep was evoked, which
was followed by the response "chimney-sweep." Some of our previous examples
also show that a general disposition of consciousness may form the only mental
process that occurs between stimulus and response words. Finally, the subjects
often described this one intervening conscious event as an act of will. One subject
reported that the stimulus word " luster " occasioned a search for a connection,
where upon the response "sun" was evoked. We then asked ourselves the question:
Which was the most frequent intervening event between stimulus and response: a
word image, an object image, a disposition of consciousness, or an activation of
will? At the same time, we sought to solve the problem whether one or the other
type of intervening conscious events slows down or speeds up the response
process. Despite intensive investigation of our material, we found very little
lawfulness in this direction. What was shown was the already fairly obvious fact
that images intervene more frequently than dispositions of consciousness or
activations of the will, as well as the rather valuable result that acts of the will slow
down the associative sequence.
[There follow two tables that show that for all subjects the mean reaction time for
responses with intervening conscious processes involving an activation of will is
longer than for those responses where no activation of the will was observed.]
These tables show quite clearly that processes involving the will slow down the
associative sequence.
Our material also indicated that the conscious processes intervening between
stimulus and response may either be accompanied by feeling tone or not. One
subject observed, for example, that for him the stimulus word "forest" evoked
aVisual image of a forest accompanied by positive feeling, which was then
followed by the response "green."
[There follow two tables showing the frequency of those associations that are and
those that are not accompanied by feeling tone, as well as their average reaction
times.]
that the intervening experiences are in most cases without any feeling tone; beyond
that, however, we observed that the average duration of associations with
intervening conscious processes accompanied by feeling tone. is considerably
longer than the duration of all the others. ,
We now asked ourselves whether the direction of the feelings that accompany the
associative processes influence the associative duration.
[There follow two tables that show the frequency of responses with pleasurable
mediating links as against those with unpleasurable mediating links, as well as
their respective reaction times.]
These tables show clearly that the negative feeling tone of intervening conscious
processes decreases the associative speed.
Finally, we found during the perusal of our protocols that conscious processes
(including feelings) may be observed not only parallel to the stimulus word but
also parallel to the response word. For one subject, the response "worm" that
immediately followed the stimulus word "tape" was accompanied by the visual
image. of a tapeworm. For another observer, hearing the stimulus word "chorale"
evoked a pleasurable feeling, whereupon the response . sing" followed. The small
number of cases falling into this category, however, does not permit us to draw
any important generally valid conclusions. Therefore, we must leave for later
investigations the solution to such questions as whether parallel psychic processes
accompany the stimulus or the response word more frequently, whether any one
particular group of psychic processes plays this parallel role more frequently than
others, and in what direction these parallel events influence the association time.
We can only say th at accompanying experiences (including feelings) may occur
parallel with either the. stimulus or the response word. Despite the fact that our
results do not directly support it, we may assume that even within an associative
process various experiences may accompany the stimulus as well as the response
word.
When a subject is given the task of responding to a spoken word with another
spoken word, different conscious processes.may oc-
cur. First, the response word may immediately follow the stimulus word; second,
one or more conscious processes may intervene between stimulus word and
response word.
It then appears that responses without intervening conscious processes take place
more quickly than those with intervening conscious events, and responses with one
intervening conscious process take place more quickly than those where several
psychic events intervene between stimulus and response word.
Whenever activations of the will are found among the intervening conscious
processes, the reaction process is slowed down.
The conscious processes following the stimulus words are only in a few cases
accompanied by feeling tone. In most cases there is no accompanying feeling tone.
The feeling tone of the intervening conscious events slows down the associative
process; negative feeling tones delay it more than positive ones. .
If one now were to attempt a categorization of the associations that occur between
spoken stimulus and response words, and if such a categorization is to be based on
qualitative differences among associations, it would look approximately as
follows:
or
(c) Those where the response words are accompanied by conscious processes, and,
,
(d) Those where both stimulus and response words are accompanied by other
experiences.
Extensive further observations would show that even this second categorization is
subject to further subdivision.
[There follows a paragraph thanking Marbe for his valuable advice as well as two
subjects for their support of the study.]
It was an uneasy transition in the history of thought. Neither Mayer and Orth, nor
Marbe, with whom they were working, were able to do much with this new
phenomenon, but Marbe was startled to find a similar problem in his studies of
judgment.
Marbe had set himself the task of determining, with the help of the new
experimental method of controlled introspection, what conscious processes were
involved in the act of judgment. The judgment was considered to he the most basic
unit of rational thought; it had been studied intensively by logicians for centuries,
and thus it was clear that a great deal was known about it. But exactly what? No
distinction had yet been made between the judgment as a human act, and judgment
or proposition as a statement of fact. The intertwining of logic and psychology in
the history of thought frequently led to facile interpretations of reasoning and
judging, such as we noted earlier in james Mill's treatment of the problem. But
Marbe set for himself a genuinely psychological problem when he asked: What
goes on in consciousness during the act of making a judgment?
observers concerned ... were extremely surprised to note the paucity of experiences
that were connected with the judgmental process." *
In the following selection we have translated part of his introduction and his major
theoretical conclusion. The latter produces a theory that permits the deduction that
judgments could not have any conscious correlates since they are based on
knowledge. Like practically all his predecessors, Marbe too had difficulties with
the problem of knowledge. To know something implies that we can judge the
correctness of a judgment, but the judgment of correctness depends on knowledge
which Marbe then relegates to a psychological disposition, a faculty. Knowledge is
built into the subject; he either has it or not. As we shall see, the next major attack
on knowing was to be undertaken by Ach who introduced the notion of
Bewusstheit, an awareness of knowledge without palpable content.
Karl Marbe
Current scholarly views about the psychological nature of judgment vary widely.
According to Brentano the nature of judgment consists of recognition or denial,
while according to the so-called psychology of association the judgment is a
special associative process. On the other hand, other scholars assume that
judgment
Messer seems to be groping to the conclusion that much of the thinking process
goes on below the conscious level, with conscious processes attending it with
varying degrees of clarity. Consciousness is beginning to take shape as the visible
portion of an iceberg, with much of the work of the thinking process going on
below the surface.
The following selection shows Messer trying to bring order into the world of Bsl
and his conclusion that the term might as well be abandoned. His footnote on page
151 suggests a solution that Binet had previously advocated and that Biffiler was
to adopt in the following year.
August Messer
Thus, these three forms of consciousness can be brought into a single dimension,
though obviously one with continuous transitional states. We can assume the same
for the concrete processes which we have, metaphorically, postulated,as the
"carriers" of these states of consciousness.
These cases where the meaning of a proposition is not immediately present upon
reading, but appears lightning-like as a separate experience, belong to the first
group. To the second group belong those cases where a judgment or a thought is
present which
could only be adequately formulated in a sentence but where still no words can be
found in consciousness. We need only suggest that here, too, there are many
transitional forms.
This should not lead us to think of the relationship in the following fashion: that
fully formulated thinking in the child is the original type which in the adult is
eventually abridged and condensed. Rather, we will have to assume ... a preverbal,
hypological thinking in the child which needs verbal shaping in order to gain
certainty, in order to become communicable and reliably reproducible.
aspects, however, they offer nothing that is either new or particularly obscure. The
term "Bewusstseinslagen" has done its duty as a temporary collective name, and it
seems advisable to replace it with the familiar expression "Gedanken" [thoughts].'
...
' It would probably fit language usage best if we were to restrict "thoughts" to those Bsts
whose content can only be formulated in one or more sentences, while the Bsl's concerned
with the meaning of single words or phrases should be designated as "concepts."
Ach used a wide variety of reaction experiments. The subject might be instructed
to flex his right index finger when a white card was presented, or to give a motor
response only to a certain class of stimuli, or to name the stimulus (one of several
cards of
different colors) when it was presented. In more complex situations the response
might be conditional, that is, the motor response was required only when a red
card was presented to the left of a white card, or a discrimination was required in
which the subject reacted to one color with the right thumb, to another with the left
thumb. In addition, there were purely verbal tasks, such as free associations or
judgments, or tasks that required the subject to give the name of the river on which
a given town was situated. The introspections collected after the completion of the
task dealt primarily with the main period, that is, the interval between the
perception of the stimulus and the completion of the response.
Awareness
Narziss Ach
N. Ach, Uber die Willenstatigkeit und das Denken. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck and
Ruprecht, 1905. This selection translated by D. Rapoport, and reprinted from D.
Rapaport, Organization and pathology of thought. New York: Columbia University
Press, 1951, pp. 24-38. By permission of the publisher.
Awareness 153
Awareness 155
sation "yellow" was present solely in its optical quality. Only afterwards did the
knowledge arise, "This is yellow," as an independent thought. it could be said that
only this thought identified the sensation as the familiar yellow color. Somehow a
link to previous experience became effective and found expression in this
knowledge. This is the process known as apperception, which always implies the
presence or appearance of the knowledge of a meaning. When a complex content,
the part-contents of which show varying degrees of awareness-intensity, is present
simultaneously, then that part of the conscious complex which is momentarily in
the foreground of awareness may be designated as the apperceived part. It is, as
Wundt puts it, in the focus of consciousness. Because of their continuous change
of intensity, it is often difficult to judge the degree of awareness of simultaneously
given part-contents. As systematic experimental self-observation plainly indicates,
attention may be evenly distributed and the simultaneously present part-contents
may momentarily show no differences of awareness intensity; therefore, the here-
described appearance of the meaning-content must be considered the crucial
characteristic of apperception. Herbart gave most careful attention to this
phenomenon. These considerations are supported by my previous demonstration
that, when a stimulus is apperceived, from the moment of its appearance maximal
attention is directed toward a single conscious content (on the basis of a previous
Einstellung). Thus, the developing stimulus-impression is in the focus of
consciousness; yet in this phase we cannot speak of [complete] apperception.
Rather, what takes place is the development of the stimulus-apperception; the
apprehension of the stimulus-impression in accordance with the preceding
Einstellung takes time. Thus a content may be in the focus of consciousness, in the
center of attention, without having been apperceived.
quate visual, acoustic, and other memory images. It must be pointed out, however,
that there are very complex contents of which only part-contents and their mutual
relationships are present in consciousness, whereas the contents themselves are not
or even cannot be represented by adequate verbal designation or by anything like
it. When a phenomenological constituent [of such a complex content] is present, it
refers only to a corresponding [partial] meaning-content; for instance, "edge"
refers to the expectation of the upper edge of the card. At the same time, other
simultaneous expectation-contents do not have such phenomenological
representation, and are present within the total tensionstate only as awareness.
Furthermore, it happens at times that complex contents, the verbal expression of
which would take several sentences, appear momentarily, like a flash of lightning.
Therefore, in their brief existence they could not be given in internal speech. Their
meaning-content is unequivocal, and their memory clear and definite, though we
cannot demonstrate the presence of any sensory qualities. Thus, for instance, in the
preparatory period of an experiment with optical reactions of twofold coordination,
Subject C. had a visual memory picture of "Q" and with it a lightning thought that
it would be most practical to be prepared only for "0"; beside this, there was the
awareness that perhaps there would be only "E." . . . In view of the clear and
unequivocal content of such awareness, it seems incorrect to assume that these are
"obscure sensations" or memory images, too weak to be demonstrable as single
contents, but which when taken together result in a realization of the meaning-
content.
Awareness 157
the number 9 was presented ... first came the awareness, "I know it," and only then
the visual image of zero.
Even though the experience we call awareness was demonstrable in all subjects,
there were great individual differences. Many people are given to immediate visual
or acoustic-kinesthetic imaging of meaning-contents. The author himself, having
neither strong motor nor visual bent, has a definite inclination to think in
awarenesses; this circumstance may well have contributed to his interest in the
analysis of imageless thinking. One area where imageless conceptual thinking is
most obvious is the quick and understanding reading of a text. When, for instance,
the written sign of the word "bell" is before me, 1 apperceive the sign and know
what it means. The awareness of the meaning is then present in me. According to
the theory of awareness, it is not necessary that presentations-apperceiving
presentation-masses-arise to assimilate the impression, for example, the sound or
visual image of a bell. According to this theory, the realization of the
meaningcontent occurs in a different fashion. It is well-known that every
presentation in consciousness-for example, the stimulus-impression "bell"-puts
many associated presentations into readiness. This readiness of presentations-that
is, their reproduction tendencies-suffices for a conscious representation of what we
call their meaning, without their having to enter consciousness. The reproduction
is not yet complete, it has only been initiated by, we might say, a stimulation of
reproduction tendencies. This stimulation suffices to create an unequivocal
relationship in the direction of the "stimulate " reproduction tendencies. These
unequivocal relationships are experienced as knowledge, that is, meaning. . . . One
of the reproduction tendencies corresponding to it may then become over-valent;
that is to say, one of the associated presentations enters consciousness and appears
as the conceptual sign of that knowledge. . . .
According to the laws of association and of reproduction of ideas, the more often
the associated ideas have been in consciousness (other factors remaining constant),
the stronger the reproduction tendency. If the meaningful word "bell " is given,
ideas most frequently associated with this sign will be put into the highest degree
of readiness. Thus, the stronger the reproduction-
Awareness 159
These considerations suggest that presentations are abstract, or rather, that all
conscious content given as awareness is abstract. The reason is that the incidental
associations which are the overtones of every awareness do not attain appreciable
conscious influence as compared with the regular associations.
The discussion of the concept of awareness has bearing on the role of determining
tendencies. We have seen that these tendencies determine the course of mental
happening so as to accord with the goal-presentation. In the preparatory period of
the experiment, when the intention is formed, reproduction-tendencies
corresponding to the meaning of the goal-presentation achieve a high degree of
excitation, by means of the heightened concentration of attention and the
perseverance of the goal-presentation in consciousness. These reproduction-
tendencies, accompanied by mean-
Besides these described forms, determination may manifest itself in what is known
as specific apperceptive fusion. Such are particularly frequent and various in
reactions without coordination of activity. For example, in the preparatory period
Subject B. had a visual image of the plus-sign, representing the intention to
" add "; when the stimulus appeared, an apperceptive fusion
Awareness 161
took place in that the appearing numbers fell into the prepared scheme. The
determined presentation followed associatively from this apperceptive fusion.
Subject C. experienced a spatial displacement of the two numbers which
corresponded to the intention: in adding they pulled together, in subtracting the
smaller figure sidled to the larger....
A middle position between special apperceptive fusion and determined
apperceptions is occupied by the cases where the apperception of the concrete
referent-presentation (for example, of a number) is followed by an imageless
meaning-awareness, and where, after that apperception but before the appearance
of the result (that is, the determined presentation), knowledge of what will appear
is present.
In the preceding selection it is clear that Ach is attempting to explain and utilize in
his theory what were to. him clear facts derived from his experimental findings:
meaning, or recognition, may sometimes he carried by visual images, but at other
times it occurs without their presence or before any images have crystalized. Yet
his "facts" and those of Marbe and Messer were soon to be bitterly disputed.
Wundt for one was not the man to admit the appearance of an experimental
psychology of thinking that he had declared as impossible just ten years
previously. And in 1907 Karl Bühler published the nec plus ultra of the
Würzburger method in a study which did not fail to point out Wundt's previous
misgivings.'
Bühler's investigation was much more ambitious than those of his colleagues. His
stimulus materials were complex questions requiring extensive thought processes
that terminated in "yes" or "no" judgments; the subjects then gave a retrospective
account of the processes intervening between stimulus and response. Bühler
concluded from these protocols that there were basic unanalyzable units in the
thinking process, which should simply be called "thoughts." These units could,
however, be classified into types, three of the most important being: first,
consciousness of a rule [Regelbewusstein], a knowing that one can solve a
problem and how it is done, without actually having the steps in mind; second,
consciousness of knowing the meaning of something, "intending" it [Intentionenj,
without having the meaningcontent clearly in mind; and third, consciousness of
relations [Beziehungsbewusstsein], an awareness similar to Ach’s conception.
The following passage illustrates Bühler conception of these "thoughts" and also
presages the concern with the unit of thought that was to reach full flowering in the
next decade.
1. The inquiry experiments are not real experiments, but rather selfobservations
with handicaps. Not a single one of the requirements set for psychological
experiments is met by them, on the contrary they realize the opposite of each of
these requirements.
2. They represent the most inadequate of the older forms of selfobservation; they
occupy the attention of the observer with an unexpected, more or less difficult,
intellectual problem and demand of him in addition that he observe the behavior of
his own consciousness.
3. The method of inquiry must be rejected in both of the forms in which it has been
used. As an inquiry prior to the experiment it subjects self-observation to the
unfavorable influence of examination pressure; as an inquiry after the experiment
it opens wide the door to the interfering influence of suggestion. In both forms the
method vitiates self-observation most severely in that the subject who is to observe
himself is at the same time subjected to observation by others.
4. The representatives of the method of inquiry ignore the well tried rule that in
order to solve complex problems one must first master the simpler ones which the
former presuppose. As a result they confuse attention with consciousness and fall
victim to a popular error in believing that everything that occurs in consciousness
may easily be pursued in self-observation. This last error alone would be sufficient
to explain the lack of results obtained by the inquiry experiments.*
Perhaps the success of the Würzburger attack can be measured by the virulence of
the reply. In any case, a more dispassionate examination of their results was soon
mounted by Edward Bradford Titchener.
In 1909 Titchener gave a series of lectures, printed in book form as Lectures on the
Experimental Psychology of the ThoughtProcesses, in which he summarizes and
analyzes the work of the Würzburg school in detail and includes his own forceful
objections to some of their conclusions. Primarily he disputes that there are
such things as imageless thoughts. The quarrel is a curious one. It rests on two
distinct yet related problems. The first problem is to be found in the nature of
introspection itself, and the second in the nature of theories of mind or thinking
that would be acceptable to the two schools.
if one carefully observes his own thought processes, does he find imageless
thinking or not'.' At first glance, this seems to be a factual question. And yet we
have already noticed how the Wilrzburg subjects, as they became practiced in their
techniques and familiar with the theoretical notions abroad in their laboratory,
gradually began to use the term "imageless thought’’ to describe their mental
processes, whereas originally the term was invented in order to define an
unexpressable experience. The Bsl became more and more common and
eventually came to pepper the protocols. That is not to say that there was no such
experience (the term was invented to fill a gap in the common language), but
rather to point out the vulnerability of introspection to the theoretical language in
vogue. It is quite possible that Marbe and Ach experienced the Bsl and that
Titchener did not. Perhaps it should not be said that Titchener did not believe in
imageless thought because he could not observe any such process in himself, but
rather that he could not observe any such process because he did not believe there
was such a thing.
For Titchener, as for the Würzburgers, the essence of the psychological experiment
was controlled introspection. But he carried this principle to its ultimate
conclusion and, as frequently happens to principles stretched to the breaking point,
it led him into absurdities. If our experimental technique is introspection and if this
is all the material we have to work with, then psychology must remain the analysis
of the conscious mind. Other, unconscious processes may be taking place within
the organism, but strictly speaking they are not psychological; they fall rather
within the realm of physiology. What does this imply for the protocol language,
the language the subjects use? First of all, Titchener, rather than implicitly
suggesting, directed his subjects as to the
language they must use. They were explicitly trained to reduce their experience to
the most basic terms possible, and these terms were prescribed: sensations and
affections. The goal was " to describe the contents of consciousness not as they
mean but as they are." Thus meanings, that is, objects, relations, recognitions, and
so forth, are not to be admitted to the protocol language (this would he committing
the "stimulus error"), but are to be built up by the experimenter-theoretician out of
the raw sensations as given to him by the subject. The difficulties inherent in
carrying out this edict are enormous. To learn to describe our familiar three-
dimensional meaningful world in terms of patches of colors and vague kinesthetic
images is not only difficult to the point of impossibility, but it also introduces
some degree of distortion of the basic data. The Würzburgers before Titchener and
the Gestaltists after him were at great pains to show that such sensations are not
the raw data of psychology, but theoretical abstractions of a high order.
Indeed, when the sensationalist position is carried to its extreme, it seems literally
impossible to commit the "stimulus error." As Humphrey states in his careful
analysis of Titchener's position:
In the following selections Titchener presents his views on imagery and discusses
some of the then current notions about thinking.
often are, and they always may be, the vehicles of a logical meaning. The stately
form that steps through the French window to the lawn may be clothed in all the
colours of the rainbow; but its stateliness is the hand on the grey skirt. 1 shall not
multiply instances. All this description must be either self-evident or as unreal as a
fairy-tale.
All through this discussion there runs, unfortunately, the confusion of logic and
psychology that is characteristic of the English school. it is no more correct to
speak, in psychology, of an abstract idea, or a general idea, than it would be to
speak of an abstract sensation or a general sensation. What is abstract and general
is not the idea, the process in consciousness, but the logical meaning of which that
process is the vehicle. All that we can say of the
idea is that it comprises such and such qualities; shows these and these temporal
and spatial characters; has a certain degree of vividness as focal or marginal, clear
or obscure; has the vague haziness of distant sounds and faint lights or the clean-
cut definiteness of objects to which the sense-organ is accommodated; is arranged
on a particular pattern. Locke and Huxley, now, believed that abstract meaning is
represented in consciousness by abstract or composite imagery; Berkeley and the
other Nominalists believed that imagery is always individual and concrete, and
that abstract meaning is accordingly represented by the abstract terim the general
name. But here is no alternative for psychology. Imagery might be strictly
reproductive in form, and yet-for a certain type of mental constitution-be the
psychological equivalent of an abstract meaning; and, again, imagery might be
vague and indefinite, and yet be the psychological equivalent of an individual,
particular meaning. The issue, in its psychological formulation, is an issue of fact.
Is wordless imagery, under any circumstances, the mental representative of
meaning? And if it is, do we find a correlation of vague imagery with abstract and
of definite imagery with particular meaning?
The first of these questions I have already answered, for my own case, in the
affirmative. In large measure I think, that is, 1 mean and I understand, in visual
pictures. The second question 1 cannot answer in the affirmative. I doubt whether
particularity or abstractness of meaning has anything essentially to do with the
degree of definiteness of my images. The mental vision of the incoming tide,
which I described at the beginning of this Lecture, is no more definite when it
recalls an afternoon's ramble than when it means the progress of science. We must,
above all things, distinguish between attentional clearness and intrinsic clearness
of definition-sharpness, precision, cognitive clearness. A process may be
transversing the very centre of consciousness, and therefore from the point of view
of a psychology of attention may be maximally clear: yet it may be so weak, so
brief, so instable, that its whole character is vague and indefinite. In my own
experience, attentional clearness seems to be the one thing needful to qualify a
process for meaning. Whether the picture as picture is sharply outlined and highly
coloured is a matter of indifference.
Come back now to the authorities: to Locke's triangle and Huxley's composite
animal. My own picture of the triangle, the image that means triangle to me, is
usually a fairly defbite outline of the little triangular figure that stands for the word
"triangle" in the geometries. But 1 can quite well get Locke's picture, the triangle
that is no triangle and all triangles at one and the same time. It is a flashy thing,
come and gone from moment to moment: it hints two or three red angles, with the
red lines deepening into black, seen on a dark green ground. It is not there long
enough for me to say whether the angles join to form the complete figure, or even
whether all three of the necessary angles are given. Nevertheless, it means triangle;
it is Locke's general idea of triangle; it is Hamilton's palpable absurdity made real.
And the composite animal? Well, the composite animal strikes me as somewhat
too even, too nicely balanced. No doubt, the idea in Huxleys mind was of that
kind; he, as an anatomist, was interested to mark all the parts and proportions of
the creatures before him. But my own ideas of animals are sketchier and more
selective: horse is, to me, a double curve and a rampant posture with a touch of
mane about it; cow is a longish rectangle with a certain facial expression, a sort of
exaggerated pout. Again, however, these things mean horse and cow, are the
psychological vehicles of those logical meanings.
And what holds of triangle and horse and cow holds of all the "unpicturable
notions of intelligence. No one of them is unpicturable, if you do but have the
imaginal mind. "It is impossible," remarks a recent writer, "to ideate a meaning;
one can only know it." Impossible? But 1 have been ideating meanings all my life.
And not only meanings, but meaning also. Meaning in general is represented in my
consciousness by another of these impressionist pictures. I see meaning as the
blue-grey tip of a kind of scoop, which has a bit of yellow above it (probably a part
of the handle), and which is just digging into a dark mass of what appears to be
plastic material. 1 was educated on classical lines; and it is conceivable that this
picture is an echo of the oft-repeated admonition to "dig out the meaning" of some
passage of Creek or Latin. 1 do not know; but I am sure of the image. And I am
sure that others have similar images. 1 put the question not long since to
the members of my graduate seminary, and two of the twelve students present at
once gave an affirmative answer. The one reported the mental unrolling of a white
scroll: what he actually saw was a whitish lump or mass, flattened and flattening
towards the right. The other reported a horizontal line, with two short verticals at a
little distance from the two ends. The suggestion in these two cases is plain
enough: meaning is something that you End by straightening things out, or it is
something that is included or contained in things. There was, however, no such
suggestion in the minds of my informants: for them, as for me, the mental
representation of meaning is a simple datum, natural and ultimate.
1 have dwelt at some length upon this visualisation of meanings because the point
in dispute is of great importance, historically and systematically, and because
visual imagery offers, so to say, the most substantial materials for its discussion.
Let me repeat, however, that my mind, the mind which 1 am trying to describe to
you, is by no means exclusively, is not even predominantly, of the visual type. 1
have, as I have said, a great deal of auditory imagery; 1 have also a great deal of
kinaesthetic imagery. The former needs no further discussion, since it plays no
active part in my thinking; but I must speak briefly of kinaesthesis.
As recently as 1904 1 was not sure whether or not 1 possessed free kinaesthetic
images. I could not decide whether my kinaesthetic memories were imaginal, or
whether they involved an actual reinstatement, in weaker form, of the original
sensations. 1 had no criterion by which to distinguish the sensation from the
image. However, as so often happens, 1 had hardly recorded my difficulty when
the criterion was found: a ground of distinction so simple, that one wonders why
there should have been any difficulty at all. It may be roughly phrased in the
statement that actual movement always brings into play more muscles than are
necessary, while ideal movement is confined to the precise group of muscles
concerned. You will notice the difference at onceprovided that you have
kinaesthetic images-if you compare an actual nod of the head with the mental nod
that signifies assent to an argument, or the actual frown and wrinkling of the
forehead with the mental frown that signifies perplexity. The sensed
nod and frown are coarse and rough in outline; the imaged nod and frown are
cleanly and delicately traced. 1 do not say, of course, that this is the sole difference
between the two modes of experience. On the contrary, now that it has become
clear, 1 seem to find that the kinaesthetic image and the kiniesthetic sensation
differ in all essential respects precisely as visual image differs from visual
sensation. But 1 think it is a dependable difference, and one that offers a good
starting point for further analysis.
We shall recur to this kinaesthetic imagery in a later Lecture. All that I have to
remark now is that the various visual images, which I have referred to as possible
vehicles of logical meaning, oftentimes share their task with kinaesthesis. Not only
do 1 see gravity and modesty and pride and courtesy and stateliness, but I feel or
act them in the minds muscles. This is, 1 suppose, a simple case of empathy, if we
may coin that term as a rendering of Einfiihlung; there is nothing curious or
idiosyncratic about it; but it is a fact that must be mentioned. And further: just as
the visual image may mean of itself, without kinaesthetic accompaniment, so may
the kinaesthetic image occur and mean of itself, without assistance from vision. 1
represent the meaning of affirmation, for instance, by the image of a little nick felt
at the back of the neck-an experience which, in sensation,, is complicated by
pressures and pulls from the scalp and throat. . . .
In the first place, the associationists did not distinguish the theory, of knowledge
from the theory of thought. "The British thinkers of the past’’- I am quoting from a
British thinker of the present-" were far from keeping their psychology
unadulterated. ... They gave us, in general, psychology and philosophy inextricably
intermingled." "Their work often shows a crossing of interests and of points of
view. Questions of logic and theory of knowledge \vere mixed up with the more
properly psychological inquiry." In fact, the associationists dealt, on principle,
with logical meanings; not with sensations, but with sensations-of; not with ideas,
but with ideas-of; it is only incidentally that they leave the plane of meaning for
the plane of existence. The experimentalists, on the other hand, aim to describe the
contents of consciousness not as they mean but as they are....
Locke's ideas, then, and James Mill's ideas, were meanings, thought-tokens, bits of
knowledge; the sensations and ideas of modern psychology are Erlebnisse, data o f
immediate experience. And the change of standpoint brings with it a second
principal difference between the older and the newer sensationalism. Meanings are
stable, and may be discussed without reference to time; so that a psychology
whose elements are meanings is an atomistic psychology; the elements join, like
blocks of mosaic, to give static formations, or connect, like the links of a chain, to
give discrete series. But experience is continuous and a function of time; so that a
Psychology whose elements are sensations, in the modern sense of the term, is a
process-psychology, innocent both of mosaic and Of concatenation. This is a point
which Wundt, the father of experimental psychology, never tires of emphasizing.
In a wellknown passage, in which he is appraising the value of the experimental
method for his own psychological development, he says: 1 learned from it that the
'idea' must be regarded as a process, no less variable and transitory than a feeling
or a volition; and I saw that, for that reason, the old doctrine of association is no
longer tenable." And again, in protesting against the hypostatisa-
tion of ideas, he writes: 'The ideas themselves are not objects, as by confusion with
their objects they are supposed to be, but they are occurrences, Ereignisse, that
grow and decay and during their brief passage are in constant change." . . .
But we must return for a moment to associationism. I said that the psychology of
meanings left us with mosaic arrangements or with discrete series. You may reply
that this characterisation is unfair. James Mill speaks, for instance, of the
coalescence of ideas: "where two or more ideas have been repeated together, and
the association has become very strong, they sometimes spring up in such close
combination as not to be distinguishable"; the idea of weight-to take a single
illustration-involves the ideas of resistance and direction and the "feeling or
feelings denominated Will," and resistance and direction are themselves
compounded of simpler ideas. And John Mill writes, in the same spirit: "When
impressions have been so often experienced in conjunction that each of them calls
up readily and instantaneously the ideas of the whole group, those ideas sometimes
melt and coalesce into one another, and appear not several ideas, but one, in the
same manner as, when the seven prismatic colours are presented to the eye m rapid
succession, the sensation produced is that of white.... These therefore are cases of
mental chemistry, in which it is proper to say that the simple ideas generate, rather
than that they compose, the complex ones." That is from the Logic. There is a
similar passage in the Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy: 1f
anything similar to this [that is, to colour mixture] obtains in our consciousness
generally (and that it obtains in many casesof consciousness there can be no doubt)
it will follow that whenever the organic modifications of our nervous fibres
succeed one another at an interval shorter than the duration of the sensations or
other feelings corresponding to them, those sensations or feelings will, so to speak,
overlap one another, and becoming simultaneous instead of successive, will blend
into a.state of feeling, probably as unlike the elements out of which it is
engendered as the colour of white is unlike the prismatic colours." It seems to me,
however, that associationism has here fallen out of the frying-pan into the fire. The
principle of association, whieh was to be in the world of mind what the principle
of gravitation
is in the world of matter- "Here is a kind of attraction," said Hume, "which in the
mental world will be found to have as extraordinary effects as in the natural, and to
show itself in as many and as various forms,"-this principle has broken down, and
composition has been supplemented by generation, mechanical mixture by
chemical combination. 1 see no gain; 1 see rather an equal misunderstanding of
chemistry and of psychology. It is, however, a misunderstanding which has been
fruitful of bad consequences, and of which we are not yet wholly free. I believe,
nevertheless, that experimental psychology has, in the main, transcended the
doctrine of mental chemistry. Colour mixture-the illustration chosen by the two
Mills and before them by Hartley is, as we all know, not a mixture of visual
sensations, but the sensory resultant of the interplay of excitatory processes in the
retina. That is a minor matter. But, in general, we have better means than a false
chemical analogy for explaining what cannot be explained in terms of a
straightforward associationism. We have learned, for instance, to make allowance
for complication of conditions; we do not expect, if two sensations are put
together, to obtain a simple concurrence of their two qualities; we expect that the
synergy of the underlying physiological processes will, in some way, become
manifest in consciousness. We may speak of general attributes of sensation, as
Ebbinghaus does; or we may speak of Gestaltqualität, form of combination,
funded character; or we may speak of the organisation of elements in the state of
attention. Different systems deal with the facts in different ways, and one
Psychologist entertains possibilities that another rejects; but at all events there is
no need of a mental chemistry. We have learned, again, that physiological
conditions may produce their effect not within but upon consciousness; that
nervous sets and tendencies may direct the course of conscious processes without
setting up new and special processes of their own. We have learned, also, that such
formations as perception and action can be understood only in the light of their
history and development; the life of mind is, throughout, subject to a law of
growth and decay, of gradual expansion and gradual reduction; what is now, so to
say, a mere tag or label upon a dominant formation may, a little while ago, have
been itself a focal complex, and the forma-
tion to which it attaches may, a little while hence, sink to the parasitic level. We
have all this knowledge, and much more, to supplement what we know of the
mechanics of reproduction, the modem substitute for the laws of association; and
there is, surely, good hope that we may work out a psychology of thought without
taking any such leap in the dark as John Mill took when he added generation to
composition.
1 have mentioned two principal differences between the older and the newer
sensationalism. The experimental psychologist deals with existences, and not with
meanings; and his elements are processes, whose temporal course is of their very
nature, and not substances, solid and resistant to the lapse of time. These
differences illustrate, as they follow from, the more fundamental difference of
general attitude. Current sensationalism is a result to which we are led by
empirical analysis, and its sensations are simple processes abstracted from
conscious experience, last terms in the psychological study of mind. The
associationism of the English school is a preconceived theory, and its sensations
are, accordingly, productive and generative elements, first terms in a logical
construction of mind. Associationism, in other words, puts sensations together, as
physical atoms or chemical molecules, while modem psychology finds sensations
together in the given mental process....
What shall be adopted ... as the criterion of a mental element? 1 regard as a mental
element any process that proves to be irreducible, unanalysable, throughout the
whole course of individual experience. Consider, for instance, the processes of
sensation and affection. They have certain salient characteristics in common; they
suggest the biological analogy of two species of the same genus; I have felt
justified in deriving them from a single hypothetical mental ancestor.
Nevertheless, I can trace no passage
from the one to the other in the individual mind; they seem to be separate and
distinct, so soon as nervous organisation is complete; and they must, therefore, I
believe, be regarded by analytical psychology as separate elements. Consider, on
the other hand, the attitudes and awarenesses of which we have said so much. If
we can trace an attitude back, within the same mind, to an imaginal source; if it
thus appears not as original endowment but as residuum, not as primule but as
vestige, then I should protest against its ranking as a mental element. Even if there
are certain minds in which the derivation is impossible, in which the attitude can
neither be identified with sensation and image nor referred with certainty to
precedent sensory and imaginal experience, I should still hesitate-so long as there
are other minds in which the derivation is possible-to adopt the purely
phenomenological standpoint, and to class it outright as elementary; I should
prefer to term it a secondary element, or a derived element, and so to distinguish it
from the elements proper, as defined a moment ago. Classification is, of course,
always a matter of expediency, and 1 have no quarrel with those who difler from
me on this particular point. But it seems to me inexpedient to give the rank of
element to anything that is not a matter of original and general human endowment.
You see, then, the place that 1 allow to genetic consideration. The
misunderstanding to which 1 have referred arises, I imagine, from a confusion of
two points of view, which may be distinguished as the analytical and the
integrative. The analytical psychologist, even when he is occupied with mind in its
development, is always trying to analyse. He may, and he does, protest that it
never occurs to him to consider sensation, for instance, the sensation of the adult.
human consciousness, as a genetic unit. Nevertheless, what he finds by his genetic
consideration must, of necessity, be sensation over again, in some less
differentiated form; his problem is analysis, and his results are conditioned by the
problem. The integrative psychologist, eager to preserve that continuity of mind
which the analyst purposely destroys, and working from below upwards instead of
from above downwards, reaches results that, in strictness, are incomparable with
the re-
I have only to add the caution that we must not expect a genetic inquiry to reveal,
in every case, a complete series of nicely graded transitional forms. If I may trust
some observations of my own, the path that leads, for example, from full imagery
to Bewusstseinslage is more likely to be broken than continuous consciousness
seems to drop, at a single step, from a higher to a lower level; the progress is
effected by substitutions and short cuts, rather than by a gradual course of
transformation. This, however, is a matter of descriptive detail, and does not affect
the principle which is laid down in the maxim.
the problems themselves; and I take up first of all the problem of meaning.
Some time ago we met with the objection that it is nonsense to call a psychical fact
or occurrence the meaning of another psychical fact or occurrence; two ideas are
and must remain two ideas, and cannot be an idea and its meaning. I said, in reply,
that in my belief two ideas do, under certain circumstances, make a meaning. What
are the circumstances?
1 hold that, from the psychological or existential point of view, meaning-so far as
it finds representation in consciousness at allis always context. An idea means
another idea, is psychologically the meaning of that other idea, if it is that idea's
context. And I understand by context simply the mental process or complex of
mental processes which accrues to the original idea through the situation, in which
the organism finds itself-primitively, the natural situation; later, either the natural
or the mental. In another connection, 1 have argued that the earliest form of
attention is a definitely determined reaction, sensory and motor both, upon some
dominant stimulus; and that as mind developed, and image presently supervened
upon sensation, this gross total response was differentiated into three typical
attitudes, the receptive, the elaborative and the executive, which we may illustrate
by sensible discrimination, reflective thought, and voluntary action. Now it seems
to me that meaning, context, has extended and developed in the same way.
Meaning is, originally, kinaesthesis;
'The term "situation- seems to me to bring out more clearly than any nearer equivalent of
Aufgabe the part played in determination by the organism itself. Externally regarded, a
situation is a collocation of stimuli; but it becomes a situation only if the organism is
prepared for selective reaction
upon that collocation. An Aufgabe, on the other hand, a task or problem, may be set to any
organism, prepared or unprepared. 1 have no wish to press the word: but I here mean by
"situation" any form of Aufgabe that is normal to the particular organism.
the organism faces the situation by some bodily attitude, and the characteristic
sensations which the attitude involves give meaning to the process that stands at
the conscious focus, are psychologically the meaning of that process. Afterwards,
when differentiation has taken place, context may be mainly a matter of sensations
of the special senses, or of images, or of kinaesthetic and other organic sensations,
as the situation demands. The particular form that meaning assumes is then a
question to be answered by descriptive psychology.
Of all the possible forms, however-and 1 think they are legion two appear to be of
especial importance: kinaesthesis and verbal images. We are animals, locomotor
organisms; the motor attitude, the executive type of attention, is therefore of
constant occurrence in our experience; and, as it is much older than the
elaborative, so it is the more ingrained. There would be nothing surprising in the
discovery that, for minds of a certain constitution, all non-verbal conscious
meaning is carried by kinaesthetic sensation or kinaesthetic image. And words
themselves, let us remember, were at first motor attitudes, gestures, kinaesthetic
contexts: complicated, of course, by sound, and therefore, fitted to assist the other
types of attention, the receptive and the elaborative; but still essentially akin to the
gross attitudes of primitive attention. The fact that words are thus originally
contextual, and the fact that they nevertheless as sound, and later as sight, possess
and acquire a content-character, these facts render language preeminently available
for thought; it is at once idea and context of idea, idea and meaning; and as the
store of free images increases, and the elaborative attitude grows more and more
natural, the context-use of words or word-aspects becomes habitual. The meaning
of the printed page may now consist in the auditory-kinaesthetic accompaniment
of internal speech; the word is the word's own meaning; or some verbal
representation, visual or auditory kinaesthetic or visual-kinaesthetic or what not,
may give meaning to a non-verbal complex of sensations or images. There would,
again, be nothing surprising-we should simply be in presence of a limiting case-in
the discovery that, for minds of a certain constitution, all conscious meaning is
carried either by total kinaesthetic attitude or by words.
181
Nevertheless, you may say, there must have been something there; you would have
had a different experience had the grey not been recognised. So a word that you
understand is experienced otherwise than a nonsense word or a word of some
unknown foreign language. Certainly! But my contention is that the plus
1,
pathic experiences which I mentioned in the first Lecture, the experiences in which
1 not only see gravity and modesty and pride and courtesy and stateliness in the
minds eye, but also feel or act them in the mind's muscles. And I should add that
they may be of all degrees of definiteness, from the relatively coarse and heavy
outlines of the typewriting illustration, down to the merest flicker of imagery
which lies, I suppose, on the border of an unconscious disposition.
What exactly did Titchener and his subjects find when they introspected on the
same thought processes which the Würzburgers had investigated? What was the
manner of the squabble going back and forth across an ocean, via the
psychological journals? Interestingly enough, in spite of the quarrel about the
allowable language in the protocol statements and about permissible conclusions
to be drawn from these protocols, the actual descriptions elicited by subjects are
highly similar and the practical conclusion drawn is almost identical: there is "a
paucity of conscious contents in much of our thinking." The theoretical conclusion
is of course entirely different, but the protocols themselves, drawn from Marbe,
Messer, and Ach on the one hand, or from jacobson, Okabe, Clarke, and other
students of Titchener on the other, could be interchanged with little noticeable
difFerence. To take just one example from Jacobson’s study in 1911 in which he
visually presented words and sentences to subjects who were instructed to report
everything that occurred in consciousness, Jacobson found that at least in some
instances subjects reported that the sentences were meaningful to them while the
visual and auditory sensations from reading the stimulus were the only conscious
contents they had. He adds a footnote about his own experiences in this regard:
The writer finds that he can converse or think in words or in incipient verbal
articulations, with the meaning present, while for considerable periods of time he
can discern no vestige of sensations or images other than those from the words
themselves. There are, in the background, sensations due to bodily position and to
general set; but while it is introspectively clear that these play an important part in
the whole experience, they do not seem to vary correspondingly with the verbal
meanings, as the conversation proceeds or the thought goes on.*
Faced with this scarcity, Titchener seems on occasion to drop his context theory of
meaning and relegate meaning to the unconscious or the physiological substratum.
But once there,, meaning is out of Titchener's experimental psychology and the
experimental study of thinking has reached a dead end. Indeed, the backwater in
which Titchener soon found himself seems not so much due to a return to
atomistic associationist principles per se, as to the restriction of psychological
research to the realm of consciousness and the restrictions on the theoretical
language.
At this point let us return to Würzburg; and meet the next problem to be faced
there, that of Aufgabe, or more generally, of motive and purpose, a problem that
places us squarely into the realm of the unconscious.