E. Jaensch as a Psychologist

Abstract

It has long been well known that children conceptualize in a highly visual way. For a long time, however, the study of these visual concepts did not go beyond a simple statement of that fact; there was no deeper psychological analysis of visual concepts. An epoch in the history of the study of visual concepts opened with the discovery by the Viennese otologist Urbantschitsch at the end of the nineteenth century of concepts that were so visual that they seemed to occupy an intermediate position between the conventional concepts of adults and perceptions. The discovery of these concepts, for which the name “eidetic” later was later established, greatly expanded the possibilities of a more profound study of visual concepts. Previously, this study was based on selfobservation, retrospection, and questionnaires; now experimentation became the primary method of study. The discovery of a completely new and, in addition, distinctive realm of concepts: visual concepts, visual images (Anschauungsbilder), and the discovery of the possibility of a more scientific and experimental study of them inevitably fascinated psychologists. Among the psychologists who took up this problem was