Wilhelm Wundt
1832-1920

 

Wundt was born in Nekarau, Germany, studied at University of Heidelberg and became a professor of inductive philosophy at Leipzig University. He is known as the "Father of Experimental Psychology" and the "Founder of Modern Psychology". Wundt not only established the first psychology laboratory dedicated to experimental psychology at the University of Leipzig in 1879 but also brought about the birth of cognitivism.


From Wundt's perspective, cognition was a internal representation. And learning was an active and creative process that goes beyond a collection of externally inputted components. In this informational processing activity, subjective factors played a major role. At first, learners identified and organized inputted information according to their mental structure, experience and existing knowledge. After contrasting, comparing or other procedures they assimilated new information into their original experience. Then, they derived the logical connections between the internal and the external factors and organized new rules or principle that would be stored in their memory.

 

 

Other resources:
http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/wundt.html

http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~elsemore/Project/pages/wundt.html

 

 

 

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