Wilhelm Wundt's psychology of memory

Summary

The work of Wilhelm Wundt and his students in the psychology of memory is reviewed. Wundt rarely used the concept ‘memory’, but he dealt extensively with a number of problems that today are often discussed under the heading of ‘memory’. Four components of his theory are distinguished and traced through the successive stages of the evolution of the theory: the theory of dispositions, the concept of the memory image, the revised doctrine of associations, and the taxonomy of recognition and recollection. The experimental work of the Leipzig laboratory is reviewed as it relates to the conceptual framework developed by Wundt. Some implications of the Wundtian perspective for modern cognitive psychology are outlined.