What was the role of retrospection in psychological research, according to Titchener?
Ebbinghuas had showed that an individual forgets in the initial few hours of learning. So, there is a possibility that the experience will be lost before introspection. Critics said that introspection was a kind of retrospection because some time passed by after having the experience. The subject did not introspect immediately after having an experience and hence, can give faulty readings.
Structural psychologist defended this by saying that the observers had the experience for the shortest interval, and that the observer held an image in their minds. This image helped them recall the actual experience.
Examining an experience is a way of introspection. For example, if someone is angry, it will be so difficult for him to introspect his angered state. When he will try to know his anger, it will subside down.
Titchener had said that his army of well trained introspectors can easily attempt the observational job automatically without even trying to change the conscious experience. Freud says that the working of an unconscious mind does not make use of introspection.
One historian has said that if introspection can be derived by the conscious mind only, then it is as it only the tip of the iceberg is known. By this thought, the study of introspection is doomed as parts of the brain fall into unconscious state.