In what way did Berkeley's ideas contribute to the development of scientific psychology?

Berkeley's ideas contributed to scientific psychology by emphasizing the role of sensory experience in perception and challenging materialism through subjective idealism.

Berkeley's work, particularly in his analysis of visual perception, demonstrated how empiricist thinking could be applied to the study of sensory processes. He argued that perceptions of distance, size, and location are judgments based on experience, not direct sensations. This focus on sensory experience laid groundwork for later psychological studies on perception. Additionally, Berkeley's subjective idealism, which posited that material objects are perceived through judgment rather than directly, challenged prevailing materialist views and influenced the philosophical underpinnings of psychology.