EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY REVISED EDITION

Robert S. Woodworth & Harold Schlosberg Experimental Psychology Revised Edition Just how different is this new edition from the old one? We believe that it is similar in style, viewpoint, and general level of difficulty. It is somewhat longer; although it has nearly the same number of pages, the new format gives about 20 percent more reading matter and cuts per page. In order to make room for the newer studies without unduly enlarging the book, we have pruned away much older material which is still of historical interest. In several chapters we have referred back to the first edition for fuller treatment of the early history of a problem. We have adopted what seems a more logical order of the chapters, though the order is relatively unimportant, for there are many cross-references in the text, and the chapters may be used in any order. We have broken up some of the old chapters, using their material in other connections. Most of the material on Feeling and on Experimental Esthetics has been dropped, since there seems to be little recent work in these fields. Emotion, on the contrary, has been treated extensively in a triad of chapters organized so as to bring some order into this chaotic field. A few new chapters have been worked out: one on the construction of psychological scales, one on Discrimination Learning, and one on Motivation treated in connection with learning. The whole section on learning has been reorganized, with more use of the abundant animal experiments which are aimed at fundamental problems. In two particular ways we have made the chapters more useful to the student. We have taken more care to make the experimental methods clear and practical in the laboratory. And we have made the chapters and subchapters more pointed by tying the data to pertinent theories. As to a general pervasive theory or systematic viewpoint, we have tried to maintain an eclectic approach throughout the book. If our approach must be given a more systematic label, we suppose it should be called ‘‘functional,’’ with a definite preference for objective data but no taboo against material obtained through introspection if it helps the psychologist to understand what the organism is doing in relation to the environment. Similarly, we have used mathematical analysis where it appears helpful, but without regarding it as the key to every problem or to all genuinely scientific theory. Some knowledge of elementary statistics is presupposed throughout and especially in the chapters on Psychophysics where a definite effort has been made to integrate the traditional methods with modern statistical practices. Besides these improvements in the text there is a major change in the bibliography which has been made more informative.

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