History of experimental psychology from an Estonian perspective

Abstract

A short review of the development of experimental psychology from an Estonian perspective is presented. The first rector after the reopening of the University of Dorpat (Tartu) in 1802, Georg Friedrich Parrot (1767-1852) was interested in optical phenomena which he attempted to explain by introducing the concept of unconscious inferences, anticipating a similar theory proposed by Herman von Helmholtz 20 years later. One of the next rectors, Alfred Wilhelm Volkmann (1800-1878) was regarded by Edwin Boring as one of the founding fathers of the experimental psychology. Georg Wilhelm Struve (1793-1864) played an essential part in solving the problem of personal equations. Arthur Joachim von Oettingen (1836-1920) developed a theory of music harmony, which stimulated his student Wilhelm Friedrich Ostwald (1853-1932) to study colour harmony. Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926), the founder of modern psychiatry, is by far the most important experimental psychologist who has worked in Estonia. His successor Wladimir von Tchisch (1855-1922), another student of Wilhelm Wundt, continued Kraepelin's work in experimental psychology. The lives of Wolfgang Köhler (1887-1967), who was born in Reval (Tallinn), and Oswald Külpe (1862-1915), who graduated from the University of Dorpat, extended the link between the history of experimental psychology and Estonia. Karl Gustav Girgensohn (1875-1925), the founder of the Dorpat School of the psychology of religion, stretched the use of experimental methods to the study of religious experience.