Titchener's Photo Album - continued...

Titchener was called in his lifetime the "Dean of American Psychologists," and after his death "A cardinal point in American systematic psychology." He was the unquestioned leader of the experimental psychology of consciousness, using the introspective method. Perhaps his greatest contribution to psychology, however, was in his emphasis on psychology as an experimental, laboratory science, one of the three fundamental sciences, along with physics and biology. To Titchener, laboratory experimentation meant a careful use of method and instruments. Titchener told his students that "Results are a function of method." By method he meant both procedure and instrumentation. He designed several instruments himself and adapted many others that became standard in psychological laboratories well into the 1940s.

Titchener's model of the Galton Bar for determining errors in spatial judgments

Titchener also believed that instruments were essential for classroom demonstrations. His own lecture room was always set up with devices to demonstrate the topics of the lectures. The photo below shows Titchener's lecture hall in Goldwin Smith Hall at Cornell, set up for a demonstration of color mixing and contrast phenomena.

E. B. Titchener's demonstrational classroom, Goldwin Smith Hall, Cornell University, ca. 1905

Left is an air compressor for acoustic devices. Middle shows an apparatus for visual contrast. Right on the table are color mixture apparatuses.