Georg Elias Müller
Georg Elias Müller | |
|---|---|
 Georg Elias Müller | |
| Born | 20 July 1850 |
| Died | 23 December 1934 (aged 84) Göttingen, Germany |
| Nationality | German |
| Alma mater | Leipzig University University of Göttingen (Dr.phil., 1873) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Experimental psychology |
| Institutions | University of Göttingen |
| Thesis | Zur Theorie der sinnlichen Aufmerksamkeit (On the Theory of Sensory Attention) (1873) |
| Doctoral advisor | Hermann Lotze |
Georg Elias Müller (20 July 1850 – 23 December 1934) was a significant early German experimental psychologist who is credited with the theory of
Biography
Early life
Georg Elias Müller was born in Grimma, Saxony on 20 July 1850 to August Friedrich Müller and Rosalie Zehme Müller. His father was a theologian and professor of religion at a nearby royal academy. His family was deeply involved in a revivalist orthodoxy (Neuluthertum) that he eventually broke away from.[2] As a child he attended the Gymnasium at Leipzig.[2]
Professional biography
At 18 he attended Leipzig University where he studied history and philosophy, while there he was inducted into Herbartian Philosophy. He was always seen as studious and had an interest in Mysticism that he fulfilled by reading Goethe, Byron, and Shelley.[2] Müller had difficulty deciding between history or philosophy, in order to make his decision he took two years off from Leipzig. During those two years, starting in 1870 he entered the German army as a volunteer, and took part in the Franco-Prussian War. He decided on philosophy which led him to the study of psychology.[2]
He started out with more of a focus in the humanities and studied philosophy and history. Though Müller does not share much of the same views as
He completed his doctorate in 1873 under the supervision of Lotze at Göttingen.[3] In April 1881 he succeeded Lotze's position at Göttingen as privatdozent and established one of the first few experimental psychology laboratories in the world. He remained privatdozent for 40 years.[3] Müller was primarily an experimental psychologist, often working in the laboratory and performing rigorous experimental investigations.[6] He was particularly prominent in reaction time research, as well as psychophysics and color theory. He is credited with a portion of the interference theory, retroactive interference, a theory that is still prominent in modern times.[1] While at Göttingen he also lectured on these topics: Psychophysical Method, Memory, and The Phenomena of Violition.[3] Müller also invented the memory drum; a device used for verbal learning research.[4]
Müller's
Works in psychology
Color phenomena
Müller retired in 1922, afterwards he began studying color phenomena. During his study of color phenomena he advanced Ewald Hering's theory of color and elaborated on the two stage theory. The first stage involved the retinal receptors and then the signals were transformed into the four opponent primary colors. In 1930 he wrote two summary books that helped define color theory.[4]
Memory
Müller's studies were most prominent in memory. He studied indistinct and distinct images effect on memory. He theorized that thinking of indistinct images made memorization and learning more effective. He agreed with the Würzburg school on indistinct images but felt to be better understood, a study of distinct images was needed.[1] Müller did memory research with Gottfried Rückle, a doctorate of mathematics student at Göttingen, who was described as a memory prodigy.[4] His research with Rückle was on his extraordinary memory through the presentation of experimental results on the role of grouping in learning.[1]
Müller and his student Alfons Pilzecker are credited with the term "consolidirung" (consolidation).[1] This terms means that learning doesn't automatically create permanent, consolidated memories, they take time to be permanently learned or consolidated. To test consolidation Müller used nonsense syllables, introduced by Hermann Ebbinghaus, to see how many trials it was needed to learn the nonsense syllables and fully reproduce them. Müller and Pilzecker quantified the amount of learning by measuring the percentage correct.[1] Some of the participants in their experiment said that occasionally the nonsense syllables would come to mind between training sessions even when they were trying to suppress it, they called this perseveration.[1]
Retroactive interference
Müller formulated and tested the theory of retroactive interference. Retroactive Interference is when learning new material leads to forgetting of previously learned material. Müller and his student Pilzecker studied this by presenting participants with a list of syllables for 6 minutes and then presented three landscape paintings and the participants were asked to describe them. Then the participants were tested on how much they remembered from the list. The control list was presented with no distractions from the landscape paintings and ability to remember what was on the control list was higher than the list followed by the painting description. This supported retroactive interference, the information from the paintings made it more difficult to remember the syllables from the first list.[1]
Works
- Zur Theorie der sinnlichen Aufmerksamkeit ("On the theory of sensory awareness," 1873)
- Zur Grundlegung der Psychophysik ("On foundations for psychophysics," 1878)
- Zur Theorie der Muskelcontraction ("On the theory of muscle contractions," 1891)
- Zur Analyse der Unterschiedsempfindlichkeit, with L. G. Martin ("On the analysis of difference perception," 1899)
- Experimentelle Beiträge zur Lehre vom Gedächtnis, with Pilzecker ("Experimental contributions to the science of memory," 1900)
References
- ^ S2CID 15660558.
- ^ a b c d e "Müller, Georg Elias". International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Retrieved 29 October 2013.
- ^ JSTOR 1415847.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-55798-654-2.
- ^ Misiak, Henry K.; Staudt, Virginia M. (1954). Joseph Fröbes. McGraw-Hill Book Company: New York, NY, US. pp. 84–85.
- ^ Boring, Edwin G. (1950). A History of Experimental Psychology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Further reading
- "Georg Elias Muller". Encyclopædia Britannica. 16 July 2023.
- Lüer G (July 2007). "Georg Elias Müller (1850–1934): a founder of experimental memory research in psychology". Cortex. 43 (5): 579–82. S2CID 4482637.
- Lechner HA, Squire LR, Byrne JH; Squire; Byrne (1999). "100 years of consolidation--remembering Müller and Pilzecker". Learning & Memory. 6 (2): 77–87. S2CID 15660558.)
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link - Dewar MT, Cowan N, Sala SD; Cowan; Sala (July 2007). "Forgetting due to retroactive interference: a fusion of Müller and Pilzecker's (1900) early insights into everyday forgetting and recent research on anterograde amnesia". Cortex. 43 (5): 616–34. PMID 17715797.)
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link
- Attribution
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the New International Encyclopedia(1st ed.). New York: Dodd, Mead.
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