Читать книгу The Handy Psychology Answer Book - Lisa J. Cohen - Страница 51

Although Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920) was not the first to address psychological questions with scientific means, he was the first to establish a scientific laboratory devoted specifically to psychology in 1879 at the University of Leipzig. Ernst Weber (1795–1878), Hermann Helmholtz (1821–1894), and Gustav Fechner (1801–1887) had all made important contributions to our understanding of sensation and perception prior to Wundt, but none of them considered himself a psychologist per se. Wundt, in contrast, was specifically focused upon establishing psychology as a science.

Interested in the nature of sensation, he combined objective measures with rigorously trained introspection. Researchers were taught to carefully monitor their own perceptual and sensory experience. Wundt’s focus was on mapping the mechanics of sensation with mathematical precision. He also taught hundreds of students and was responsible for training many of the major figures in the first few decades of the field. His focus on identifying the components of the mind was termed structuralism.