Key thinkers

Discover more about pychology’s ‘Key Thinkers’ throughout history.

Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894)

Helmholtz developed two major theories in psychophysiology regarding the transduction of physical stimuli into nervous impulses and how qualitative, stimulus information is coded into neural signals. His two theories are the trichromatic theory of colour vision and the place theory of audition. While it is Helmholtz’s theory of perception that is our focus here, these two theories of transduction and sensory coding are central to understanding his theory of perception.

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William Harvey (1578–1657)

With his convincing arguments favoring the pumping activity of the heart, Harvey had prepared the way for a centuries-long debate in biology between mechanists and vitalists.

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William James (1842–1910)

James entered the scene, historically, when psychological thought was vacillating between various reductionist propositions and arguments in favor of transcendentalism. Partisans formed into camps and the lines of communication were severed; discussion or debate was in-house.  As James saw the matter, extreme positions were not tenable and were shown to be in error in the experience of everyday life.

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