Psychology as we know it didn't suddenly appear on the intellectual scene.  It is impossible to say just when it began, or who was responsible for it.  Instead, we can only point to a number of currents that take us from philosophy and the natural sciences into something recognizably psychological.  This chapter looks at two of these "primordial" currents -- associationism as the beginnings of a cognitive theory, and the introduction of quantification in the forms of psychophysics and intelligence testing.

Associationism

Associationism is the theory that the mind is composed of elements -- usually referred to as sensations and ideas -- which are organized by means of various associations.  Although the original idea can be found in Plato, it is Aristotle who gets the credit for elaborating on it.  Aristotle counted four laws of association when he examined the processes of remembrance and recall:

1. The law of contiguity.  Things or events that occur close to each other in space or time tend to get linked together in the mind.  If you think of a cup, you may think of a saucer;  if you think of making coffee, you may then think of drinking that coffee.
2. The law of frequency.  The more often two things or events are linked, the more powerful will be that association.  If you have an eclair with your coffee every day, and have done so for the last twenty years, the association will be strong indeed -- and you will be fat.
3. The law of similarity.  If two things are similar, the thought of one will tend to trigger the thought of the other.  If you think of one twin, it is hard not to think of the other.  If you recollect one birthday, you may find yourself thinking about others as well.
4. The law of contrast.  On the other hand, seeing or recalling something may also trigger the recollection of something completely opposite.  If you think of the tallest person you know, you may suddenly recall the shortest one as well.  If you are thinking about birthdays, the one that was totally different from all the rest is quite likely to come up.

Association, according to Aristotle, took place in the "common sense."  It was in the common sense that the look, the feel, the smell, the taste of an apple, for example, came together to become the idea of an apple.

For 2000 years, these four laws were assumed to hold true.  St. Thomas pretty much accepted it lock, stock, and barrel.  No one, however, cared that much about association.  It was seen as just a simple description of a commonplace occurrence.  It was seen as the activity of passive reason, whereas the abstraction of principles or essences -- far more significant to philosophers -- was the domain of active reason.

During the enlightenment, philosophers began to become interested in the idea again, as a part of their studies of vision as well as their interest in epistemology.  Hobbes understood complex experiences as being associations of simple experiences, which in turn were associations of sensations.  The basic means of association, according to Hobbes, was coherence (continguity), and the basic strength factor was repetition (frequency).

John Locke, rejecting the possibility of innate ideas, made his entire system dependent on association of sensations into simple ideas.  He did, however, distinguish between ideas of sensations and ideas of reflection, meaning active reason.  Only by adding simple ideas of reflection to simple ideas of sensation could we derive complex ideas.  He also suggested that complex emotions derived from pain and pleasure (simple ideas) associated with other ideas.

It was David Hume who really got into the issue.  Recall that he saw all experiences as having no substantial reality behind them.  So whatever coherence the world (or the self) seems to have is a matter of the simple application of these natural laws of association.  He lists three:

1. The law of resemblance -- i.e. similarity.
2. The law of contiguity.
3. The law of cause and effect -- basically contiguity in time.

David Hartley (1705-1757) was an English physician who was responsible for making the idea of associationism popular, especially in a book called Observations of Man.  His emphasis was on the law of contiguity (in time and space) and the law of frequency.  But he added an idea he got from the famous Isaac Newton:  This association was a matter of tuned "vibrations" within the nerves!  His basic ideas are very similar to those of D. O. Hebb in the twentieth century.

James Mill (1773-1836) also elaborated on Hume's associationism.  The elder Mill saw the mind as passively functioning by the law of contiguity, with the law of frequency and a law of vividness "stamping in" the association.  His emphasis on the law of frequency as the key to learning makes his approach very similar to the behaviorists in the twentieth century.  But he is most famous for being the father of...