To break this circle, it indeed becomes necessary to emancipate one's
self from the method of ordinary self-observation and to replace it by
objective experiment in the psychological laboratory. Experimentation
in such a laboratory stands in no contrast to the method of
introspection. A contrast does exist between self-observation and
observation on children or patients or primitive peoples or animals.
In their case the psychologist observes his material from without. But
in the case of the typical laboratory experiment, everything is
ultimately based on self-observation; only we have to do with the
self-observation under exact conditions which the experimenter is able
to control and to vary at will. Even Parsons sometimes turned to
little experimental inquiries in which he simplified some well-known
methods of the laboratory in order to secure with the most elementary
means a certain objective foundation for his mental analysis. For
instance, he sometimes examined the memory by reading to the boys
graded sentences containing from ten to fifty words and having them
repeat what they remembered, or he measured with a watch the rapidity
of reading and writing, or he determined the sensitiveness for the
discrimination of differences by asking them to make a point with a
pencil in the centres of circles of various sizes. But if such
experimental schemes, even of the simplest form, are in question, it
seems a matter of course that the plan ought to be prescribed by real
scientists who specialize in the psychological field. The
psychologist, for instance, surely cannot agree to a method which
measures the memory by such a method of having spoken sentences
repeated and the quality of the memory faculty naïvely graded
according to the results. He knows too well that there are many
different kinds of memory, and would always determine first which type
of memory functions is to be examined if memory achievements are
needed for a particular calling.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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