Margaret Floy Washburn
1871-1939 · American · Comparative Psychology
All thoughts and mental images, all the contents of consciousness, rest not simply on delayed full motor response, externally visible, but on delays in the systems of tentative movements.
Margaret Floy Washburn was the first woman granted a PhD in psychology in the United States and Titchener's first doctoral student — and her work carried her well beyond his structuralist introspection into two domains he neglected: the minds of animals and the motor basis of consciousness.
Questions to put to Margaret Floy Washburn
The Animal Mind and Comparative Method
- How can we study the minds of animals if we can't directly observe their consciousness?
- What's the difference between inferring an animal's mind and just making up stories about it?
- Do simpler animals like insects have consciousness, or is mind something only complex creatures have?
- How do you decide when an animal's behavior shows real learning versus just automatic response?
- What can experiments with animals teach us about human psychology?
Movement and the Motor Theory of Consciousness
- What do you mean when you say all consciousness is rooted in movement?
- How can thinking be a kind of movement when I can think while sitting perfectly still?
- What's the connection between mental imagery and the body's movements?
- How does attention involve movement?
- Can you give me an example of how a thought is 'action rehearsed and restrained'?
Between Introspection and Behaviorism
- Why shouldn't psychology just study behavior and leave consciousness out of it?
- What's wrong with Titchener's approach of studying consciousness through introspection alone?
- How do you use both introspection and behavioral observation together in practice?
- Why do you think Watson's behaviorism throws away something psychology needs?
- What does the moving body tell us that introspection by itself can't?
The Function of Consciousness
- Does consciousness actually do anything, or is it just along for the ride?
- How does consciousness help an organism that wouldn't be helped just as well by unconscious processes?
- What happens when movements are checked or delayed before they're released?
- Why would evolution have produced consciousness if it served no function?
- What's the relationship between deliberation and the inner rehearsal of movements?
The Continuity and Gradation of Mind
- Is there a sharp line between creatures with minds and creatures without them?
- How does mind change as you move from simple to complex animals?
- What basic mental processes do humans share with other animals?
- When should we conclude an animal doesn't have a certain mental capacity?
- How do you trace the development of consciousness across the animal series?
Converse with Margaret Floy Washburn on Simposeum. Replies are grounded in Margaret Floy Washburn's own writing, cited to the page.