Friedhart Klix

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Friedhart Klix (2000)
Friedhart Klix's grave

Friedhart Klix (born October 13, 1927 in Oberfriedersdorf ; † September 22, 2004 in Berlin ) was a German psychologist . He was a leading German theorist in cognitive psychology .

Career

Klix's father was a farmer. At the end of the war, Friedhart Klix was drafted into the Volkssturm , but at the end of the day he escaped British captivity. He passed his Abitur in 1946 and was briefly employed as a new teacher in the Saxon civil service in the subjects of history and mathematics . He joined the SED early on and initially tried in vain to get a place in psychology.

In 1949 Friedhart Klix began studying psychology and mathematics at the Humboldt University in Berlin (HUB) in Berlin . After receiving his diploma in 1953 on the mode of action of target voltage in retail activities , he remained as a scientific assistant and lecturer, completed his dissertation on the constancy of size of things seen when the perceiver moved himself with distinction in 1957 and worked on elementary analyzes on the psychophysics of spatial perception until the end of the experiments of his habilitation at the Psychological Institute under the direction of Kurt Gottschaldt , who was institute director here from 1946 to 1961.

Due to increasing conflicts with the director of the institute Gottschaldt, he accepted an appointment as professor at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena for two years , where he rebuilt the psychology course together with other “Berlin refugees”. He completed his habilitation at the Technical University of Dresden (TUD) with Werner Straub and returned to Berlin in 1962 , after Gottschaldt accepted an appointment at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen in early 1962 . At the HUB, an interim management of the Institute of Psychology under the leadership of Friedhart Klix , Gerhard Rosenfeld and Hans Hiebsch was appointed for one semester (the so-called "triumvirate").

At the Humboldt University in Berlin

In 1962 Friedhart Klix was appointed full professor at the Humboldt University in Berlin and at the same time was entrusted with the management of the "Institute for Psychology" as the institute director. He transferred the reorientation of teaching and research that he had already established in Jena to the HUB, which is characterized by a strictly experimental foundation of psychology and its close ties to mathematics and cybernetics . He divided the institute into “Fundamentals of Psychology”, “Engineering Psychology” and “Clinical Psychology”. He put the scientific staff together largely interdisciplinary by integrating young scientists trained in other scientific disciplines into his team of scientists in addition to the psychologists. This enabled him to make new research approaches possible and to build new courses on this. As early as 1964, he and his team presented the first results of this reorientation at the International Symposium “Psychological Problems of Cybernetic Research” in Berlin.

Psychophysiological research has also been carried out at the institute since 1966 , based on a research approach by the former institute director Gottschaldt from the mid-1950s. Since then, such methods have complemented the experimental investigations in all three profile lines of the institute. Standardized psychodiagnostics (e.g. intelligence diagnostics) and the results of psychotherapy (e.g. conversation therapy, behavioral therapy, relaxing procedures) became very important for psychological practice .

In the course of the third university reform in the GDR in 1968, a "Psychology Section" was founded at the HUB, which encompasses all psychologists from various former faculties (founding director: Gerhard Rosenfeld ). However, a stable section structure was built here only after it had concentrated on the former Department of Psychology with Klix as a section director until 1970, then followed Hans-Dieter Schmidt and 1974-1984 again Klix , most recently to 1990, Klaus-Peter Timpe , who also has built up training in engineering psychology at the institute or at the section.

Friedhart Klix was a member of the Executive Committee of the International Union of Psychological Science (IUPsS) from 1972 to 1980 and from 1984 to 1992 , which, on the occasion of its world congresses in Japan in 1972 and confirmed in Mexico City in 1976, approved the XXII. International Congress for Psychology 1980 in Leipzig . The occasion was the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the world's first institute for experimental psychology in Leipzig by Wilhelm Wundt . As president of the congress, Klix was instrumental in organizing the congress and largely prevented the event from being appropriated ideologically. In Leipzig he was also the first German to be elected President of the IUPsS for the period from 1980 to 1984 . From this position he succeeded in admitting the Psychological Society of the GDR to the International Science Council (ICSU).

Between 1982 and 1988, the IUPsS and the ICSU (International Council of Scientific Union) announced a project on human-computer interaction , which was carried out by a project group from the fields of basics of psychology and industrial and engineering psychology under the direction of F. Klix and H. Wandke was carried out. The GDR psychology was also because of the knowledge gained there and the special role of F. Klix for decades in the international reputation at that time far ahead of the West German cognitive psychology.

In 1980, Klix had the first computer installed in the psychology section (imported from hp Hewlett Packard), which was used for the control and analysis of experiments, preferably for displaying and analyzing event-related brain potentials.

In 1982, at the instigation of Klix, a psychodiagnostic center was incorporated into the Psychology Section (headed by Uwe Schaarschmidt ). The main focus of this center was the development and standardization of psychodiagnostic procedures, as well as the processing and publication of procedures that had not been developed at the center. With the establishment of this center, a long-term strategic goal had been achieved.

For decades, Klix exemplified an interdisciplinary and internationally oriented method of research; his team included not only psychologists, but also mathematicians, engineers, physicists, biologists and philosophers. A total of 38 professors have emerged from this academic school , as examples: Between 1978 and 1989, in addition to F. Klix and Hans-Dieter Schmidt, six other full professors were appointed: Hubert Sydow, Johannes Helm , Joachim Hoffmann, Klaus-Peter Timpe, Uwe Schaarschmidt (succeeding J. Helm) and Elke van der Meer. There were also three lecturers appointed as extraordinary professors: Edith Kasielke, Bodo Krause and Klaus Zimmer. Hans-Jürgen Lander, already appointed full professor in 1972, followed a call to the University of Leipzig in 1975 , as did Hans-Georg Geissler (1982). Werner Krause accepted a position at the University of Jena , and Lothar Sprung became full professor at the HUB in 1990.

The visionary suggestions from Friedhart Klix were just as important for many researchers as his work on scientific bridges from the GDR to the international scientific community and especially between East and West Germany.

The prize for the international orientation he achieved and the successes was that he strategically focused on general, particularly experimental psychology in the management of the institute, and areas of application that were “closer to ideology” such as clinical psychology were less able to develop. This was mainly controlled by the allocation of resources. He saw a danger that the applied disciplines could lead to a social criticism of actually existing socialism, which would then have led to political restrictions for the entire psychology - including its activities. Ultimately, the areas of application also benefited from the successes and were internationally oriented in terms of content.

Friedhart Klix was a long-time member of the SED and used his connections to high party functionaries to advance the development of psychology, to protect it from political appropriation and loss of connection with international developments and at the same time to protect its protagonists, who are sometimes socially critical, from sanctions.

At the Academy of Sciences

During his time as institute director for psychology at the HUB since 1946, Kurt Gottschaldt also headed the department for experimental and applied psychology at the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin (DAW) from 1955 . His academic student Hans-Dieter Schmidt also worked here as a research assistant from 1957 to 1959 , who later became the director of the Psychology Section at the HUB in 1970, succeeding Friedhart Klix. In 1962, after moving from Gottschaldt to Göttingen, Klix took over both his function as institute director at the HUB and the management of the office at the DAW. In 1965 Friedhart Klix was elected as a full academician . Thus, through intensive contacts with other academy members, he gained a broad overview of the academy and finally also extended access to the research possibilities of the academy as an extension of his research capacities at the HUB.

In 1968 the Central Institute for Cybernetics and Information Processes (ZKI) was set up with its seat in Berlin with the aim of researching and promoting automation / control and computing technology / IT in the GDR. In 1970 it was assigned to the Berlin Academy of Sciences (DAW). Horst Völz was appointed founding director of the Central Institute in March 1969, followed by Volker Kempe , who held this position from 1977 to 1990.

Friedhart Klix had succeeded in setting up a basic "Cybernetics" department at the ZKI and taking over its management, which was later continued as the "Artificial Intelligence" department. Characteristic for this area was the connection between psychology and artificial intelligence with the main focus: Cognitive psychological basics for automated pattern recognition and image processing (Fritz Wysotzky, Siegfried Unger), strategies for medical diagnostic systems (Wilfried Gundlach, Winfried Jentsch) and psycholinguistic analyzes for automatic language processing. The later establishment of the department "Psychology" under the direction of Klix was also significant and strategically intended for the development of the subject psychology in the GDR as a preliminary stage of an independent "Central Institute for Psychology" of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR (AdW) to be established later .

On behalf of Klix, Hubert Sydow and Werner Krause set up a department and then the “Basics of Cybernetics” department at the Academy's Central Institute for Cybernetics and Information Processes (ZKI) from 1969 onwards. The "Analysis and Synthesis of Problem-Solving Processes Department" (headed by Werner Krause ) within this area became the nucleus for a planned "Central Institute for Psychology" at the AdW.

A further step towards this strategic goal was the establishment of a "Department of Psychology" at the ZKI in 1983, the first head of which was Joachim Hoffmann , previously full professor in the Psychology Section of the Humboldt University. In 1985 the department "Mathematical Modeling and Simulation of Cognitive Processes" was founded within this area, which existed until the beginning of the liquidation of the Academy of Sciences and whose head was Erdmute Sommerfeld .

However, the strategic goal, namely the establishment of an independent “Central Institute for Psychology”, was increasingly no longer achievable. That is why Hans-Georg Geissler accepted an appointment at the University of Leipzig in 1982 . After the establishment of a central institute for psychology at the academy was no longer realistic, Werner Krause accepted an appointment at the University of Jena in 1987 , and in 1990 Lothar Sprung became full professor at the newly established Institute for Philosophy of Science and Human ontology at the HUB.

In the period from 1989/1990, Bodo Krause from the HUB was entrusted with the management of the working team for the establishment and as the designated director of a newly founded “Institute for Psychology” at the AdW. However, due to the winding up of the AdW in the course of German reunification , this project was no longer realized.

Reception of the models by Friedhart Klix

Klix's work on the organization of human memory has formed a basis for cognitive-theoretical, psychological and psycholinguistic research to this day. In his book “Conceptual Metaphors and Text Coherence” (Tübingen 2003) Xiaohu Feng draws on a model by Friedhart Klix (1984) for the chapter Presupposition and Inference of Scripts and Frames (pp. 120–123) (incorrectly citing him as “Friedrich “Klix): In his essay On the Representation of Knowledge in Human Memory , contained in the work Memory-Knowledge-Knowledge Use , published by him in 1984, Klix presented two helpful basic types of knowledge use:

  • Type 1 Update of parts of the knowledge as a result of the stimulation of memory contents on the basis of associative storage : With regard to the term “ship”, the term framework can be defined by meaningful lexemes (so-called “stereotypical implications”) such as “helmsman”, “anchor” or "Deck superstructures" are activated.
  • Type 2 Update with the help of operations / procedures based on memory content : Texts or text elements are used as input for the procedures and are processed by means of comparison, conclusion or inference processes. In this way, non-saved consequences are derived from saved partial content or premises, with scripts and frames of the text elements playing a role.

Reading or listening to a text via "intended inference" activates unspoken content that is necessary for understanding. In addition, the “elaborative inference” activates further knowledge of the reader / listener that is appropriate to the text. In the memory, text content and inferentially added knowledge are later indistinguishably fused (Bussmann quoted in Feng, p. 125): So it happens that two people can read or hear very different things from one and the same text.

Psychophysics of cognitive processes

Friedhart Klix wanted to create a " psychophysics of cognitive processes" , and so together with some of his students he presented innovative approaches for a "theoretical psychology":

The variety of manifestations is attributed to a few modular units, invariant to requirement transformation and justified by their evolutionary formation: six elementary cognitive operations (activation, inhibition, substitution, transition, projection, inversion) and four cognitive procedures (comparison, concatenation, compression, Abbreviation; referred to as universals of thinking), two classes of concepts (object concepts, event concepts; Friedhart Klix , Elke van der Meer and Joachim Hoffmann ), the postulate of a mental grammar: “It could be like that ... that there is one there is mental grammar, which consists of original cognitive operations and which start in the lexical area as well as in constructive thinking and which work differently, possibly more simply than the logical-systematic structure formation of the grammatical textbooks suggests. "

With just a few microstates , the variety of manifestations on the neural level can be mapped as microstate sequences ( Werner Krause ).

And further: a universal constant : a smallest time quantum of 4.56 ms ( Hans-Georg Geissler ), integer multiples thereof to differentiate between cognitive processes and structures, invariance and simplicity as universal quantities, the concept of structure and its properties as well as reference on Gestalt psychology ( Bodo Krause ), methods for measuring memory structures ( Hans-Jürgen Lander ), a system of cognitive structural transformations and completeness considerations ( Erdmute Sommerfeld ), measurement of cognitive structures ( Werner Krause ), measurement of a subjective metric and its change in the thought process as Structural transformation and thus quantification of intellectual performance ( Hubert Sydow ), communication processes as structural transformation and the development of a quality measure for communication under cognitive requirements ( Wilfried Gundlach ), system-theoretical analyzes of sensorimotor coordination ( Klaus-Peter Timpe ).

And finally: the use of enlightened cognitive elementary processes to measure developmental disorders ( Hubert Sydow ), to find diagnoses ( Uwe Schaarschmidt , Michael Berg , Lothar Sprung ) and to develop command languages ​​in industry and the like. a. m. ( Heinz-Jürgen Rothe , Anna-Marie Metz ).

Memberships and honors (selection)

Publications

Klix wrote more than 200 scientific publications , plus more than 65 specialist books, in which he was involved as an author and co-editor. Klix ensured that the lack of contemporary psychology textbooks at that time was systematically remedied, especially for basic training in the GDR. For this purpose, three textbooks were developed on his initiative at the Psychology Section:

  • Hans-Dieter Schmidt (1970). General developmental psychology.
  • Friedhart Klix (1971). Information and behavior.
  • Walter Gutjahr (1971). The measurement of psychological characteristics.

In his groundbreaking textbook Information and Behavior (1971), Klix used cybernetic, information and game theory models ( Wiener , Shannon , Neumann , Sharkov, but also novel approaches of his own) to describe psychological processes such as concept formation and memory. When it appeared, “Information and Behavior” became the standard textbook in the field of “General Psychology”, not only in the GDR.

The series of these three textbooks was later expanded to include:

  • Hubert Sydow & Peter Petzold (1981). Mathematical psychology.
  • Bodo Krause & Peter Metzler (1983; 1988). Applied Statistics.
  • Lothar Sprung and Helga Sprung (1984; 1987). Basics of the methodology and methodology of psychology.
  • Joachim Hoffmann (1986). The world of concepts.
  • Erdmute Sommerfeld (1994). Cognitive structures.
  • Werner Krause (2000). Thinking and memory from a scientific point of view.
  • Lothar Sprung & Helga Sprung (2010). A brief history of psychology and its methods.

Klix succeeded Gottschaldt as editor of the Zeitschrift für Psychologie , even beyond the end of the GDR. He was one of the editors for many years and made sure that this oldest psychological specialist journal in Europe and the second oldest in the world retained its international character and empirical-scientific orientation. In 1990 the series of international symposia at the Psychology Section of the HUB was concluded with a thematic symposium: 100 Years of the Journal of Psychology.

The evolutionary psychological question of how thinking gradually develops and the historical paradigms (How do worldviews change in human history?) He pursued very early (1980, “Awakening Thinking”), and continued to publish on this topic after his retirement .

Works (selection)

  • Cybernetic analyzes of mental processes. New results of cybernetic-psychological research. Walter De Gruyter, 1968, ISBN 3-11-120569-X .
  • Information and behavior. Cybernetic aspects of organismic information processing. Huber, Bern 1971.
  • as editor: Human and Artifical Intelligence. (Fundamental studies in computer science), 1979, ISBN 0-444-85173-9 .
  • with J. Hoffmann: Cognition and Memory. North Holland, 1980, ISBN 0-08-086659-X .
  • Psychological contributions to the analysis of cognitive processes. Kindler Verlag, 1982, ISBN 3-463-00679-0 .
  • Cognitive Research in Psychology. 1983, ISBN 0-444-86350-8 .
  • with Risto Näätänen and Klaus Zimmer (eds.): Psychophysiological Approaches to Human Information Processing. (= Advances in Psychology, 25). North-Holland 1985, ISBN 0-08-086679-4 . (eBook)
  • Awakening thinking. A history of the development of human intelligence. German Science Publishing House, Berlin 1985.
  • Human Memory and Cognitive Capabilities. Mechanisms and Performances. Part A and B, Elsevier Science, 1986, ISBN 0-444-70071-4 .
  • with Hartmut Wandke (Ed.): Man-Computer Interaction Research. Volume 1: Proceedings of the First Network Seminar of the International Union of Psychological Science (Iupsys) on ... North-Holland 1986, ISBN 0-444-87910-2 .
  • with Norbert A. Streitz, Y. Waern and H. Wandke: Man-Computer Interaction Research. Volume 2: Selected Papers of the Man-Computer Interaction Research Network of the International Union of Psychological Science. North-Holland, 1989, ISBN 0-444-87336-8 .
  • The nature of the mind. Hogrefe, Göttingen 1992, ISBN 3-8017-0478-5 .
  • Awakening thinking - mental achievements from an evolutionary psychological point of view. Spektrum Akademischer Verlag Heidelberg, 1993, ISBN 3-86025-084-1 .
  • with Karl Lanius : Ways and wrong ways of the human. How we became who we are. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart; Berlin; Cologne 1999, ISBN 978-3-17-016035-4 .
  • with Karl Lanius : Ways and wrong ways of the human. Cosmology today - a contribution to the worldview. trafo Wissenschaftsverlag Dr. Wolfgang Weist, Berlin 2000, ISBN 978-3-89626-213-4 .

Literature on F. Klix

Web links

Commons : Friedhart Klix  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Appreciation on the website of the Institute for Psychology at the Humboldt University in Berlin
  2. ↑ Friedhart Klix in DORSCH Lexicon of Psychology
  3. ↑ Short biography on:  Klix, Friedhart . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
  4. ↑ Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin Jahrbuch 1988/89: Friedhart Klix on the development and workings of the human mind p. 47
  5. ↑ cf. on this: Zeitschrift für Psychologie, 171, 1965
  6. ^ Proceedings of the XXII International Congress of Psychology, Leipzig GDR July 6-12, 1980, 3 volumes, printed as a manuscript.
  7. ↑ Schönpflug, W., Lüer, G .: Psychology in the German Democratic Republic: Science between ideology and pragmatism: The XXII. International Congress for Psychology 1980 in Leipzig, its history and aftermath. Springer Verlag 2011 ISBN 9783531930572
  8. ↑ IUPsyS Officers and EC 1951-Present on iupsys.net
  9. ^ Man-Computer Interaction Research: MacInter-I: Proceedings of the First Network Seminar of the International Union of Psychological Science (Iupsys) North-Holland; 1 edition (January 1, 1986)
  10. ↑ cf. z. B. Preface by Chr. Tögel to "Dreams - Fantasy and Reality"
  11. ↑ see also: Relationship between Klix and Hans-Dieter Schmidt in: History of the University of Unter den Linden 1810-2010 by H.-E. Tenorth Walter de Gruyter 2014 - p. 203 f.
  12. ↑ Wolfgang Schönpflug, Gerd Lüer: Psychology in the German Democratic Republic: Science between ideology and pragmatism The XXII. International Congress for Psychology 1980 in Leipzig, its history and aftermath. Springer Fachmedien 2011 , especially the last two chapters "Resonance" and "Two political systems, one science
  13. ^ Ära Klix (1962-1990) history of the Humboldt University
  14. ↑ Friedhart Klix: The nature of the mind. Hogrefe, Publishing House for Psychology, Göttingen; Bern; Toronto; Seattle 1992, ISBN 978-3-8017-0478-0 .
  15. ^ Yearbook wiko berlin report by F. Klix in the yearbook of the Wissenschaftskolleg 1989/90 p. 47 ff
personal data
SURNAME Klix, Friedhart
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German psychologist
DATE OF BIRTH October 13, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Friedersdorf (Spree)
DATE OF DEATH September 22, 2004
Place of death Berlin