Wilhelm Wundt Was One of the Great,

Wilhelm Wundt was one of the great, founding fathers of modern psychology. His definition of the three main goals of psychology and understanding of the specific elements of thought were some of his major contributions. Further, Wundt helped define the terms perception, apperception and creative synthesis. His early work on the psychology of elements and his later work in the Volkerpsychologie helped to cement his position as an outstanding and influential psychologist. Wundtian psychology has declined greatly in recent times, largely as a result of his reliance on introspection.

Wundt's three main goal of psychology were to describe, predict and explain behavior. Wundt was one of the first psychologists to set psychology apart from philosophy. He sought to apply the principles of scientific investigation. As such, he was one of the first psychologists to bring the study of psychology to the laboratory, and attempt to discern the basic nature of human consciousness and experience.

According to Wundt, there are specific elements of thought, each with specific attributes. He founded the psychological school of structuralism that believed that the mind could be studied, like any other physical entity. Structuralism broke down thought into three main elements: sensations, feelings and images. These three elements each with specific attributes, combined to form conscious experience.

Wundt also played a great role in defining the terms perception, apperception and creative synthesis. Wundt initially saw perception as simply the work of sensory organs, like the eyes and ears. Eventually, however, he began to feel that perception was the work of a central, mental, and introspective process of central synthesis. He argued that the sensory organs interacted with mental representations like thoughts and memories to form a person's perception of an event.

He saw apperception as basic mental activity, where mind was seen as an activity, not a substance. In this sense then, apperception was part of Wundt's understanding that psychology as part of an elaborate philosophy.

Wundt felt that apperceived ideas were grouped together in a central way, at the center of attention. This was called creative synthesis, and contrasted with the mechanical and automatic way that he felt perceived ideas were grouped together.

In the theory of the higher mental processes, Wundt had a specific role for attention. Wundt felt that attention played a large role in higher human cognitive phenomena. He felt that the center of attention, or consciousness, helped to group together perceived ideas. Attention, then helped to form the basis of memory and a person's conscious interpretation of events. Wundt felt that attention was crucial in the formation of memories, and the process of creative synthesis, where apperceived were grouped together in a central way, thus forming the conscious representation of events and memories.

Wundt's early work on the psychology of elements and his later work in the Volkerpsychologie were related, with respect to both method and subject matter. Volkerpsychologie expounded the idea that higher cognitive phenomena (like human language) could best be understood in terms of experimental and ethnographic methodology. He expanded on this in his work, Volkerpsychologie, a ten volume work that was published in 1920, relatively late in his career.

Interestingly, throughout both Wundt's early study of the elements and in Volkerpsychologie, he remained true to many of his basic principles. Throughout his career he remained true to the ideas that psychology should be set apart from philosophy, and the mind could be studied using experimental, scientific methods. All of his work was rooted in his attempt to study the mind, and the processes that underlie the various complexities of human thought, or cognition.

Wundtian psychology has declined greatly over the past years. Certainly, his reliance on introspection is one of the two main reasons that this has occurred. Wundt believed that psychology could be studied by "observing" the internal mental life, a process known as introspection. Introspection fell out of favor largely due to the difficulties in studying the internal mental life of individuals.

Eventually, introspection was in large part replaced by behaviorism, where the internal workings of the mind were seen as a "black box," and only the stimulus and response were considered worthy of psychological study. This form of psychology was much easier for experimenters to approach and study, as it did not have the inherent complexities and difficulties of attempting to define and understand internal, introspective processes. Instead, these processes could be ignored.