Psy 515 - History of Wundt's Laboratory

History of Wundt's Laboratory

Brandi S Sumrall

PSYCH/515

January 12, 2013

History of Wundt's Laboratory

Wilhelm Wundt founded the first laboratory of psychology in 1879. A significant event in history, it was the inspiration for many other laboratories of psychology. Often those who wanted to build their own laboratories would travel to Wundt's Laboratory in Leipzig where they would gain a better understanding of how the laboratory worked to create a stronger foundation for their own laboratory. Most students who attended Wundt's laboratory were not degree seeking. They would attend for a semester or two and return to their former university (Nicolas & Ferrand, 1999).

The best description available of Wundt's original laboratory before it was relocated in 1896 is the account given by Jules-Jean Van Biervleit. He was trained at Leipzig by Wundt and his assistants in 1891 to gain a better understanding if their experimental techniques. Van Biervleit explained the structure and organization of Wundt's laboratory as posessing three components: the introductory course, both theoretical and practical; the research work; and a library. The introductory course appealed to a wide range of students in various fields of study. Philosophy, law, education, and medical student are a few of the fields that attended. The course ran 15 sessions and was repeated every six months. The course was conducted as an informal discussion, allowing students to interact, ask questions, and raise objections followed by the running of various experiments. The students are given topics and allowed eight days to develop a design, determine the technical arrangement, and choose methods that will offer the best solution to the problem given. The last two sessions are left for examinations of the various propositions. The research work is done within the second floor of a building. The first five rooms consist of an antechamber, a darkroom for vision research, two rooms dedicated to electromagnetic instruments for experimentation and various demonstration models for lessons, and a library. Another room is dedicated to experiments that do not involve electricity. The reaction room is the room most easily isolated. It is used to observe the reactions of subjects to visual or auditory stimuli. The subject engages a response button at the exact moment he or she perceives the sensory stimuli. The subject is completely isolated from the experimenter and therefore is not influenced in any way. The rooms also contain many devices specifically design by Wundt to produce a stimulus and record the reaction at the exact moment in which it occurs. Wundt had an annual budget of 1,500 Deutschmarks to