Firtst psychology lab

Chapter 12 endnote 45, from How Emotions are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett. Some context is:. That is what scientists do: we measure stuff, and then we transform the pattern of numbers into something meaningful by making an inference. Wilhelm Wundt founded the first psychology laboratory in at the University of Leipzig.

Wundt is credited with conducting the first formal experiment in psychology, where he tried to assess the speed of thought by measuring how long it took test subjects to make a judgment. He measured the discrepancy between the actual and perceived position of a pendulum swing and inferred that these numbers represented the speed of thought. This might not sound impressive now, but at the time it was a pretty creative idea.

In psychology and neuroscience, it is standard practice to carefully measure physical changes in the body and the brain to make inferences about the mental. This is an example of reverse inference. From How Emotions Are Made. Some context is: That is what scientists do: we measure stuff, and then we transform the pattern of numbers into something meaningful by making an inference.

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