Edward Titchener

Born 1876 in Chichester, Sussex, England, Edward Bradford Titchener is often referred to as the champion of experimental psychology. A principle student of Wilhelm Wundt, Titchener coined the terms structural Psychology and functional psychology; he saw the two in opposition. Where structuralism takes a reductionistic approach to the study of the mind by attempting to identify the basic elements which make up our experience, functionalism views all human experience, and indeed the mental experience of all conscious agents, in terms of an active attempt at adaption to the relative environment of the organism in question. Current psychological tradition is most indebted to Titchener for his carrying of Wundt-like experimental psychology and psychological laboratories to America, where his structuralism stood served as a contrast to the functionalism of his American contemporaries such as William James, John Dewey, and James Angell.

For Titchener the goal of psychology was a tripartite one:

1. To observe and describe the constituents of conscious experience in terms of its elementary divisions.
2. To describe the combination of these elementary divisions combine.
3. To explain the connection/relation between the elements of consciousness and the physical body, ie. the nervous system

The experimental method which Titchener preferred to employ was Introspection, a technique of careful self-report, which according to Titchener, is only valid if performed by highly trained individuals. The goal of introspection in Titchener's structural experiments was to break down the conscious content of ones mental experience while being exposed to different situations. One of the common errs of inexperienced introspectionists is what Titchener labelled "Stimulus Error". In this case the inexperienced introspectionist identifies the stimulus as opposed to the cognitive content which brings about the stimulus.

The following is a link to Titchener's text The Schema of Introspection. In this text Titchener meticulously describes the process by which introspection is carried out and its practical uses.

http://psychclassics.asu.edu/Titchener/introspection.htm