I still do Fechner. I used to briefly do the DL and JND concepts when I taught
intro (I believe Gleitman's text still covers him). When I taught History of
Psych I did more, starting with Herbart and Leibnitz' concepts on petite
perceptions, a few staged DL demos, then Weber & Fechner. I used to have an
essay question on whether he or Wundt founded psychology. He's hard to avoid in
measurement classes (though the books ignore him). I tie him to the challenge
of scaling brightness or loudness, and then discuss the challenge of scaling
more ambitious things such as beauty or happiness.
Fenchner's metaphysical ramblings as Dr. Mises and the 'day' and 'night' views
are also worth doing, as I (after Boring) paint a picture of the Germans as
struggling with the relationship between the objective/physical versus the
subjective/psychological, hence the only country where psychology could have
started. So you can still get a tremendous amount of mileage out of Fechner in
undergraduate classes.
btw right before Fechner I show my favorite Calvin & Hobbs cartoon, doing
pushups and counting (something like) "20" "514" and then saying (something
like) "exercise is more gratifying when you count like it feels like"
--------------------------
John W. Kulig
Professor of Psychology
Plymouth State University
Plymouth NH 03264
--------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Karl L Wuensch" <wuens...@ecu.edu>
To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" <tips@acsun.frostburg.edu>
Sent: Thursday, October 22, 2009 10:25:56 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: RE: [tips] Fechner Day! -- that darn date
I am probably the only faculty member at my institution who even
mentions Fechner in the Intro class. When I refer to Fechner with my graduate
students they give me that "WTF are you talking about" look. When I ask who
has ever heard of Fechner, not a single hand is raised. So sad. A few will
say they remember hearing of Weber, but none can comment on his contributions
to the discipline.
Cheers,
Karl W.
-----Original Message-----
From: Gerald Peterson [mailto:peter...@vmail.svsu.edu]
Sent: Thursday, October 22, 2009 8:20 PM
To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)
Subject: Re: [tips] Fechner Day! -- that darn date
Is psychophysics being taught at the undergrad level? I was introduced to
Fechner in an undergrad Exper. Psych class and then in the capstone History and
Systems class, but I don't see references to psychophysical methods in most
Experimental psych texts. I would think it would be covered in our S&P class.
I do mention Fechner and Weber in Intro tho. Gary
Gerald L. (Gary) Peterson, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Psychology
Saginaw Valley State University
University Center, MI 48710
989-964-4491
peter...@svsu.edu
----- Original Message -----
From: "William Scott" <wsc...@wooster.edu>
To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" <tips@acsun.frostburg.edu>
Sent: Thursday, October 22, 2009 5:44:39 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: Re: [tips] Fechner Day! -- that darn date
A long time ago an old friend introduced me to the tradition of serving cake in
class on Fechner day. I recommend it. Some places can even put a photo in the
icing. Fechner's mug makes everyone take a small piece so one cake can stretch
through a large class.
Bill Scott
>>> "Christopher D. Green" <chri...@yorku.ca> 10/22/09 5:28 PM >>>
The Zend-Avesta was a religious text (after a manner of speaking) by
Fechner, in which he outlined his "daylight" view of science (a kind of
pan-psychist, post-Romantic view of the world), as opposed to he called
the "twilight view" (of materialism). (The Avesta is a sacred text of
Zoroastrians, who (to a first approximation) worship the sun.) He also
wrote abook about the "soul life" of plants.
Neither has ever been translated to my knowledge, but Michael
Heidelberger's biography of Fechner is an excellent source (if a bit
dense).
Chris
--
Christopher D. Green
Department of Psychology
York University
Toronto, ON M3J 1P3
Canada
416-736-2100 ex. 66164
chri...@yorku.ca
http://www.yorku.ca/christo/
==========================
Ken Steele wrote:
>
>
> I have been wondering about the report of that dream, because it is
> repeated so often--but without attribution. I looked at the 1966
> English translation of Elements of Psychophysics (Vol I) and no
> mention of the date or a dream occurs in the text. (The translation
> of the volume was NIH-funded to celebrate the centennial of the
> publication of E of P. I guess we will need to wait until 2066 to see
> the translation of Vol. II).
>
> E G Boring does the introduction to the translation and repeats the
> dream story--without attribution of course. Even more irritating is
> an article by Boring (1961), in which the date/dream story is
> higlighted several times, still without attribution.
>
> However, Boring (1929/1950) does provide an interesting bit of info in
> his Experimental Psychology. Fechner wrote a book, "Zend-Avesta, oder
> uber die Dinge des Himmels und des Jenseits," which was published in
> 1851.
>
> Boring (1929/1950, p. 279) notes: "Oddly enough this book contains
> Fechner's program of psychophysics..."
>
> 1851 would be a year after the famous dream and the dream/idea would
> still be fresh. The "Elements" contains mainly the results of the
> program
>
> Google books has the Zend-Avesta online but my rusty knowledge of
> German and the old font system have managed to block my efforts to
> find the psychophysics section. Perhaps another scholar will have
> better luck.
>
> Happy Fechner's Day,
>
> Ken
>
> Boring, E. G. (1961). Fechner: Inadvertent founder of psychophysics.
> Psychometrika, 26, 3-8.
>
>
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