Experimental Psychology

Experimental psychology refers to the branch of psychology concerning the basic process and design method of experimental research and its application in the field of basic research and practice of psychology.

Brief History

Before the nineteenth century, the problems of psychology were mostly discussed in the field of philosophy, using the method of speculation and empirical generalization. There was a prevailing belief that the experimental method was not applicable for the study of psychological phenomena. After the Renaissance, the materialist philosophical trend of ideas and the development of natural science in Europe gave birth to the experimental psychology at the end of the nineteenth century. The former includes John Locke’s materialist empiricism, David Hartley’s associationism, and Julien Offray de La Mettrie’s mechanical materialism. The latter includes the research on nerve conduction in physiology, the debate on brain function localization and the establishment of the...