What is the stimulus error? Give an example. How, in Titchener’s view, could the stimulus error be avoided?
Titchener described the stimulus error, which is the confusion between mental processes and the stimulus which is under study. For example, a red rose has to be described by the subject. The subject instead of describing the color, brightness or feeling of watching the redness of the flower jumps to the description of the object or the stimulus.
The subject had to actually describe the experience he or she is deriving after watching the red rose. When subjects focus on the stimulus, they fail to arouse their conscious content and this is called stimulus error.
The subject very well knows the color, brightness of the rose, but they start describing the rose, the object. Thus, they are experiencing what we call mediate experience and not immediate experience. This error can be rectified if one does not describe it in everyday language instead they make use of their conscious element or content for describing the stimulus.
The subjects instead of observing the object stat interpreting it. Thus, losing the course of the experiment. Titchener envisioned structural psychology as a pure science which was free from applied work. He did not want development of child psychology, animal psychology among others.