What was the significance of Bessel’s work for the new psychology? How did it relate to the work of Locke, Berkeley, and other empirical philosophers?
Bessels work provided data from astronomy, which illustrated and supported the importance of human observational skills. Now, scientists were to focus on the duty of human perception and observational skills.
According to Empirical philosophers, like Locke and Berkeley there is no exact correspondence between, the object and its perception. Bessels work however, proved that human observing power and perception abilities play a major role in determining the results of the experiment.
To understand how the humans perceive or have different perception about the same thing, physiological analysis of the brain was done. It was ascertained how brain functions, giving everyone a different perception or observational skill.
Experimental psychology had now begun, from the philosophical psychology. Efforts were taken to understand the brains anatomy so that the functions of each part, can be easily deciphered.
Scientists began studying the human sense organs, and the physiochemical reactions behind the whole process. Early psychologists began studying sense organs, as by Bessel it was proved that perception played a major role in psychology. The ability to sense, perceive and, observe given to living organism, led psychology to take a new route towards understanding human nature.