Wilhelm Wundt's Psychology of Memory

Psychol. Res. 42, 135--155 (1980) ical (Wundt Centennial Issue)

Eckart Scheerer

Universitiit Oldenburg, Federal Republic of Germany

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.

Introduction

The psychology of memory belongs to the least known aspects of Wilhelm Wundt's psychology. In his classic History of Experimental Psychology Boring closes his brief account of the relevant work of the Leipzig laboratory with the comment that these studies 'made little impression as compared with the effective research upon memory by Ebbinghaus and G.E. Miiller' (Boring 1957, p 343). Boring's account is correct insofar as the 'Verbal Learning' perspective prevalent until the sixties of our century indeed may be traced to the Ebbinghaus - G.E. Miiller - Meumann tradition. Never- theless, Wundt has dealt extensively with a number of problems that today would be treated under the heading of memory. Because his views should be more attractive to the modern 'cognitivist' trend in memory research than those of the rival 'Verbal Learning' theorists, it is perhaps a useful enterprise to unearth the Wundtian tradition of memory research. There is one simple reason why the Wundtian psychology of memory should have escaped the attention of many psychologists: it was not presented under the heading

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'memory'. Wundt had little use for the term 'memory'; he felt that it was a remnant of the old faculty psychology, which in turn had derived it from the pre-scientific psychology of common sense (1920, p 300). According to Wundt, the concept of memory, as it is usually employed, refers to the 'general ability for the renewal of ideas' (1887, p 394), and thus it carries the misleading implication that ideas are substance-like entities waiting for their renewal. However, Wundt conceded that the term had a certain limited usefulness. It may serve as a 'shorthand expression for certain highly complex products of association and of active apperception'; it is needed by descriptive psychology in the classification of individual differences (1887, p 394); and finally, it finds its place in the practical applications of psychology, primarily in education (1909, pp 14 f). Accordingly, Wundt treated memory, together with imagination and intelligence, in a special chapter of the Grundziige der physiolo- giscben Psychologie which was entitled, from the second to the fourth edition, 'Mental Endowments' (Geistige Anlagen), and afterwards, 'Complex Intellectual Functions'. This chapter was reserved, in the earlier editions, for certain individual differences in memory abilities along with some sentences on the development of memory and its decay in old age. In the later editions, the 'learning experiments' performed by Ebbinghaus, G.E. Miiller and others received a brief and rather cool review in this chapter.

Components of Memory in the Context of Wundt's Psychology

Where, then, should we look for Wundt's own psychology of memory? The answer to this question depends on what we ourselves want to mean by 'memory', and how well we can adapt our own conception to that of Wundt. I propose to take as a starting-point the following distinction between various memory components which has gained considerable popularity in recent memory research: a) Iconic (in the visual case) or Echoic (in the auditory case) Memory, a short-lasting after-effect of sensory stimulation; b) Working Memory, concerned with the storage and processing of inter- mediary results in all types of mental activities; c) Episodic Memory, dealing with personal or autobiographical memories that are localized with respect to a context defined by the internal temporal dimension of our own experience; d) Semantic Memory, our individually acquired but impersonal and de-contextualized 'knowledge of the world'. Although Wundt had something to say about all of these four memory components, he did not apply the label 'memory' to all of them. Despite his criticism of the 'vulgar' concept of memory, he was careful to keep to its definition when using it. Because the concept referred to the renewal of ideas, it could not be applied when some conscious phenomenon or process was extended over time without having vanished from consciousness, as is the case in the 'storage' processes nowadays called Iconic/Echoic and Working Memory. 'Iconic' Memory and the Positive After-Image In his discusssion of Erdmann and Dodge's (1898) tachistoscopic experiments on word recognition, Wundt (1900 a) pointed out that the effective duration of the image (reale Bildzeit) of a tachistoscopic stimulus could be much longer than its nominal Wilhelm Wundt's Psychology of Memory 137 exposure time, and his estimate of the duration of the reale Bildzeit was close to modern estimates of ionic storage (250 ms). Although Sperling (1960) drew the inspiration for his pioneering experiments on brief visual storage in part from Wundt, it may be doubted that Wundt's views had much in common with the modern conception of iconic storage as found in Averbach and Sperling (1961) and Neisser (1967). To be sure, Wundt felt that a spatial shift of attention (Aufmerksamkeitswanderung) could occur during the after-duration of a tachistoscopic stimulus, and this idea has some similarity to the notion of scanning as employed by modern authors (e.g., Neisser 1967). But on the whole Wundt was far from assigning any particular functional significance to the persistence of briefly exposed stimuli. He conceptualized it in terms of a positive after-image of retinal origin, i.e., as a direct expression of the persistence of neural excitation (1908/11, Vol II, p 202). The presence of positive after-images was a nuisance rather than an asset to the reading process, because they would superimpose on each other and thus prevent the intake of information during eye-movements (1908/11, Vol III, p 583). In brief, Wundt's treatment of 'storage' phenomena in tachistoscopic viewing is much more congenial to recent views that stress the retinal origin and artifactual nature of 'iconic memory. (Turvey 1977; Neisser 1976; Sakitt 1976), than to the 'received view' tracing its origin to Averbach and Sperling and to Neisser (1967). 'Working'Memory and tbe Span of Consciousness I have found only one place where Wundt refers to the immediate recall of a memory list as the 'marginal case of a memory achievement' (1908/11, Vol III, p 559). On the whole, he prefers to deal with the processes involved in short-term (or rather, working) memory under the rubrics of 'span of consciousness' (Bewusstseinsumfang) and 'focus of attention' (Fokus der Aufmerksamkeit). The spans of attention and of consciousness belong to the cornerstones of Wundt's psychological system and have been discussed recently by Leahey (1979); I therefore restrict my exposition to their significance for the psychology of memory. Wundt preferred to use a visual metaphor when talking about the relationship between attention and consciousness, but this should not distract us from the fact that he extended his theorizing to the case of audi- tion and to the processing of successive stimuli. In fact, the original experimental paradigm for the measurement of the spans of attention and consciousness involved the same/different judgment about two successively presented sequences of metro- nome beats. The length of the sequences about which an immediate judgment of identity could be given depended on whether or not some rhythm could be imposed on the sequence: without a rhythm, sequences containing up to six elements could be apprehended immediately (span of attention), while with rhythmical sequences the number of elements occasionally rose to 40 (span of consciousness). For Wundt there was no basic difference between simultaneously and successively presented elements: in both cases the upper limit of performance depended on the number of separate impressions that could be merged into one 'comprehensive idea' (Gesamtvorstellung). The apprehension of sequentially organized input (e.g., speech perception) therefore always involves a transformation from succession to simultaneity, and the inverse transformation is obligatory in the production of sequentially organized output, as in speech production. Wundt's classical definition of the concept 'sentence' - 138 E. Scheerer

the linguistic expression of the voluntary segmentation of a comprehensive idea into its components according to their logical relations (1900 b, Vol II, p 236) - presupposes the concept of the span of consciousness: The ability of people to think in sentences is closely connected with their span of consciousness; and it is an immediate consequence of this circumstance that all essential components of a sentence may be conscious in the moment we begin to utter a sentence (ibid., p 235). Another consequence of the function of attention and consciousness in speech production is that the modulation of speech according to volume, duration, and pitch is governed by the basically rhythmic nature of attention. At the end of the nineteenth century it became increasingly popular to refer to the phenomena covered by Wundt's term 'span of consciousness' in terms of memory (James's expression 'primary memory', borrowed from Exner). Wundt's reluctance to adopt this usage was more than a matter of terminology. He felt that the retrospec- tive and anticipatory awareness of one's own thoughts and utterances was an undoubt- able introspective observation, and that the temporal extendedness of consciousness was the necessary functional prerequisite for the smooth production of the 'stream of speech' (Fluss der Rede). In sum, the term "Bewusstseinsumfang' was Wundt's expression for the temporal integration of mental activity, an integration that was an eminently active process because it was governed by apperceptive functions. The very fact that Wundt negated the existence of a separate 'short-term memory' enabled him to formulate many of the ideas that today are being discussed under the heading 'working memory'. Two Meanings of the Term 'Memory' In the first edition of the Grundzu'ge (1874) we find no indication that Wundt made a distinction analogous to the contemporary distinction between episodic and semantic memory. However, some years later Ribot proposed that memory in the strict sense of the word involved 'localization in time', and he described the transition from individual, temporally localized memories to impersonal, objectified memories which can only accidentally be localized in time because they are connected with personal impressions (Ribot 1881/2, p 38). As early as the second edition of the Grundziige (1880), Wundt referred to Ribot's work on memory, and from the third edition on (1887) he incorporated his proposals in the form of a distinction between the mere renewal (Erneuerung) of ideas and their recollection (Erinnerung). The act of recollection always involves a 'relation to the constant ideational content of consciousness' (1880, p 396). The most permanent ideas are those referring to oneself, and they form the center around which our memory images group themselves. The renewal/ recollection dichotomy has a correlate in the distinction between memory in the broad sense and memory in the strict sense of the word. The former reflects the mere ability to renew the contents of ideas (Vorstellungsinbalte), while in the latter the reproduced idea is recognized as such, and in this way is brought into a relation to the past of consciousness. Memory, in the proper sense of the word, therefore involves some kind of 'localization in time' (1908/11, Vol III, p 605). 'Memory in the proper sense of the word' is obviously equivalent to what today is called 'episodic memory'. Except for a brief reference to the fragmentary and Wilhelm Wundt's Psychology of Memory 139

discontinuous nature of the memory in animals and young children, Wundt never did elaborate on the nature of 'memory in the broad sense of the word'. Ribot is more explicit on this point; he adduces the memory for one's own native language as the chief example of 'impersonal memory'. As far as Wundt is concerned, it may be supposed that the acquisition and pathological destruction of language was an instance of memory in the broad sense of the word; his discussion of the neuropsychological foundations of word formation is in part couched in terms of memory, but without any reference to 'localization in time' (1900 b, Vol I, pp 491-518, 1908/11, Vol I, pp 364-377). At any rate, the semantic aspect of memory, as far as it is mediated by language, for Wundt belonged to the VMkerpsycbologie rather than to the Pbysiolo- giscbe Psychologie, and a discussion of Wundt's psychology of memory may be safely restricted to 'memory in the strict sense of the word'.

Elements of Wundt's Theory of Memory

Wundt's views on memory and recollection gradually evolved over the years. Some new viewpoints were added to a constant core already to be found in the first edition of the Grundziige, but there is nothing like the complete reformulation found, for instance, in the theory of feeling. Consequently, the various components of the theory are best presented in the sequence of their emergence. Applying this criterion, we can distinguish between the following components: a) the theory of dispositions; b) the concept of the memory image; c) the reformulation of the association principle; and d) the taxonomy and analysis of recognition and recollection.

The Theory of Dispositions What is the basis for our ability to renew an idea that has vanished from consciousness? Wundt's answer to this question remained essentially the same after he had first formulated it in the 1874 edition of the Grundziige: Once an idea has vanished from consciousness, it ceases to be an idea; instead, what remains of it is a functional disposition to the reproduction of some idea. The 'disposition theory' was conceived by Wundt as an alternative to two earlier types of theories: the theory of unconscious ideas (held by Herbart and his followers, including Wundt himself in the first edition of the Vorlesungen iiber die Menschen- und Tierseele; 1863, pp 378 ff); and the theory of mental traces, according to Wundt first formulated by Beneke. For the purpose of the present discussion the differences between these two the- ries are irrelevant; it is also immaterial to what extent Wundt drew an adequate picture of them. However, the reasons for his protest against them retain some interest trans- cending their historical context. Wundt felt that the theory of unconscious ideas (and the theory of traces to the extent that it envisages the traces as 'faint replicas' of ideas) rested on the assumption that ideas are entities (Wesen) 'enjoying immortal existence' (die sich eines unsterblichen Daseins erfreuen; 1908/11, Vol III, p 304). That is: once an idea has vanished from consciousness, it remains unchanged until it is renewed, and this applies to all ideas that ever have been conscious. This conception comes into conflict with the observation that the great majority of ideas cannot be recalled at all, and if they are recalled, then they are practically never identical with the original idea to which they refer. In a more general way, the static conception of ideas 140 E. Scheerer was incompatible with Wundt's process conception of the mind: Ideas are functions or processes, rather than entities or substances. However, even an idea conceived as a process might leave some trace once it has occurred! It is necessary to spell out more clearly the difference between 'trace' and 'functional disposition', the more so because the disposition theory had been criticized as 'empty' (Schuster 1879; cf. Volkmann yon Volkmar 1884/5, Vol I, pp 407-410). Both traces and functional dispositions are after-effects. But a trace is a special case of after-effect: it is itself a process, and moreover it is similar to the process by which it has been evoked and which it tends to renew (example: an after-image). A functional disposition, on the other hand, only tends to facilitate the occurrence of certain processes, but it is in no way comparable to the function facilitated by it (e.g., the improvement of visual acuity arising from practice in measuring line lengths by eye; Vol 1908/11, Vol III, p 538). In modern terminology, Wundt restricted use of the term 'trace' to what Hebb (1961) has called 'activity trace', but he did not believe that this type of trace was a precondition for the formation of a 'functional disposition'. It is no coincidence that Wundt chose to demonstrate the difference between traces and dispositions by means of an example taken from physiology. Dispositions are psychophysical phenomena, i.e., they have both a physiological and a psychological side. However, Wundt believed that only the physiological nature of dispositions was open to scientific investigation. In this respect, he identified the formation of functional dispositions with the 'fundamental phenomenon of practice' (1908/11, Vol I, p 112), i.e., the increase in neural excitability following the excitation of a nerve fibre, complemented by the facilita- tion (Bahnung) of new neural connections taking place in the central nervous system. With respect to the psychological nature of dispositions Wundt professed a fundamental agnosticism. By their very definition, functional dispositions fall outside the realm of consciousness and therefore outside tl~ boundaries of our psychological experience (1908/11, Vol III, p 305). Perhaps the meaning of Wundt's disposition theory becomes clearer when we quote a definition given by one of his students. Dispositions are partial conditions for the actual course [of ideas]: the conditions which are suf- ficient to explain the dependency of newly occurring experiences on prior experiences which are no longer present (Jesinghaus 1912 a, p 355;a similar, less complicated definition is given in Meumann 1912, pp 30 f). Stated in modern terms, this quotation reveals that we are dealing with a concept that is defined in operational terms; the Wundtian concept of disposition is the prototype of a 'dispositional concept'! In fact, Meumann (1912, p 32) recommended the theory of dispositions because it allowed the psychologist to avoid superfluous hypotheses. Wundt himself was not so non-committal. To be sure, dispositions were conditions facilitating the reproduction of ideas, but the activation of a disposition always had to be initiated by some conscious process. This brings us to the phenomenal and functional properties of memory images.

The Memory Image When talking about memorial representations Wundt employs a terminology handed down to him by both the German and the British philosophical tradition. 'Reproduced Wilhelm Wundt's Psychology of Memory 141

idea' (Reproduzierte Vorstellung) is the generic term for ideas referring to objects that are not present when the idea occurs; among these, a distinciton is made between 'ideas of imagination' (Einbildungsvorstellungen) and 'memory images' (Erinnerungs- vorstellungen or Erinnerungsbilder), depending on whether or not a reproduced idea refers to some earlier idea. Despite his indebtedness to this terminological tradition, Wundt progressively freed himself from the meanings traditionally attached to these terms, a process which can be seen in the successive editions of the Grundziige. In :the last edition of the Grundziige we find a description of the traditional conception of the memory image: (Ideas) are supposed to be replicas of the real things. As a consequence of being deposited in the mind, they loose their freshness, and they may be lost altogether; but as long as they are available, they form a well assorted store, out of which now and then an old, decayed exemplar comes to light on occasion of some new impression (1908/11, Vol III, p 452). For Wundt it was a remarkable fact that, in spite of having no foundation in fact whatever, this conception was shared by philosophers whose convictions in other re- spects differed drastically from each other, like Herbart and Spencer. Nevertheless, the same conviction was basically shared by Wundt himself in the first edition of the Grundziige. There he says that the memory image 'simply repeats a prior idea', and that it differs from the original perception by its faintness (1874, p 645). Wundt's emancipation from the 'faint replica' theory of the memory image occurred in two stages. The first stage was reached in the fourth edition of the Grundziige. It is defined by the acknowledgment that memory images are not replicas of previous conditions, but signs for them. The replica theory arises from a confusion between the sign and the thing signified by it: when two classes of mental processes (memory image and direct sense perception) refer to the same object, then the wrong pre- supposition arises that they themselves must be identical. In reality, close observation reveals that they are radically different from each other, even though they refer to the same object (1893, Vol II, p 431). In what respect are memory images different from the previous ideas to which they correspond? At this stage of the theory Wundt was still prepared to accept the difference in intensity as one of the distinguishing marks between memory image and perception (1893, Vol II, p 2). The other (new) distinguishing mark is the 'qualitative composition' (qualitative Zusammensetzung). Memory images (or rather, the act of recollection) contain an additional component which is not present in direct sense perceptions: the relation to some previously experienced idea finds expression in a special, 'recognitive' feeling component (Wiedererkennungsgefiihl; 1893, Vol If, p 431). This development of the theory was prompted by H6ffding's (1889/90) introduction of the term 'quality of familiarity' (Bekanntheitsqualitdt). The next stage was reached in the first edition of the Grundriss der Psychologie (1896). Here we finally find intensity relegated to a secondary principle; the char- acteristic property of memory images is now that their sensory elements are incom- plete, rather than faint. For instance, when I remember a person known to me many features of his face simply do not exist in my consciousness. However, this does not 142 E. Scheerer imply that compared to direct sense perception a memory image is an 'impoverished' mental phenomenon. The few sensory elements contained in it are associatively connected with a large number of ideational and emotional components referring to the conditions under which an idea was formed originally, and in the last instance these elements which refer to 'accessory circumstances' (begleitende Umstdnde) are the defining properties of memory images (1896, pp 289 f). The relevant paragraphs in the Grundriss are perhaps the clearest statement of Wundt's theory of the memory image, but they are not yet the definitive one. Two later amendments are not too complicated. First, the more extensive treatment in the later editions of the Grundziige mentions, in addition to the fragmentary nature of memory images, their continuously changing appearance, and it defines the conditions under which memory images do not differ from sense perceptions in terms of intensity (1908/11, Vol III, pp 452 f). Second, the feelings attending the acts of recognition or recollection are integrated into the three-dimensional theory of feeling by being assigned to the tension-relaxation dimension (ibid., pp 511 f). The third amendment is rather puzzling at first sight. After Wundt has gone to some pains to clarify the differences between memory images and sense perceptions, we now find him saying that direct sense perceptions and memory images can never completely be separated from each other, and they never function independently of each other (ibid., p 489). This statement does not actually contradict his earlier pronouncements. Rather, Wundt here seeks to derive the phenomenal differences between memory image and perception from their functional continuity. The latter is given by the fundamental principle that every direct perception (direkte Sinnesvorstellung) contains some reproduced elements, and that every memory image is accompanied by some external sensory excitation (ibid., p 385). In both perceptions and memory images, direct sensory elements and reproduced components are closely interwoven by a network of assimilative connections. However, as a rule the sensory components of memory images remain in the background of consciousness, and this is both the cause and the result of the specific 'feeling tone' of memory images. It is the cause inasmuch as the feeling tone of an idea is apperceived earlier than its objective (i.e., sensory) content when a weak sensory process enters into an idea (ibid., p 105), as is the case in memory images. It is the result because this prior awareness of the emotional reaction may prevent the sensory elements of memory images from being noticed at all. In this case the idea is entirely represented by its emotional equivalent (Gefiiblsdquivalent) - an important source of the mythological concept of the 'unconscious', i.e., the assumption that a nonexisting idea may still strongly affect consciousness (ibid., p 489). Wundt's discussion of the 'emotional equivalents of ideas' was probably his response to the doubts, first expressed by Kiilpe (1893, pp 212 f), about the obligatory involvement of memory images in recognition. These doubts were the first precursors of the 'imageless thought controversy' (cf. Lindenfeld 1978), and around the turn of the century they had received empirical support by Bentley (1899), Whipple (1901), and others. Wundt had found a solution which enabled him to continue to use the term 'memory image' without implying that the functioning of memor3/images depended on the subject's actual awareness of their sensory constituents. Wilhelm Wundt's Psychology of Memory 143

After we have traced the somewhat complicated evolution of the memory image theory it is gratifying to note that one aspect of the theory remained constant through all its metamorphoses. This is the rejection of the Herbartian notion that ideas have an immanent tendency to rise into consciousness unless they are inhibited by other ideas. In opposition to this assumption of 'freely rising ideas' (frei aufstei- gende Vorstellungen) Wundt formulated the general principle that every change of ideas is based either on direct sense impressions or on association (1892, p 361). His protest against the notion of freely rising ideas was initially motivated by his general rejection of the Herbartian 'reification' (Verdinglichung) of ideas. Factual support was later given by Scripture's (1892) demonstration of mediated association. From now on, the 'illusion' of a free rise of ideas was explained by people's failure to notice the mediating members of an associative chain. When Miiller and Pilzecker (1900) introduced the notion of a 'perseveration tendency' in addition to the 'reproduction tendencies' based on association, Wundt was unpleasantly surprised. He denounced the MiJller-Pilzecker doctrine as a return to Herbartian metaphysics. In his view, the 'perseveration tendency' was a purely symp- tomatic effect which could be traced to a variety of causes, such as the after-effect of every conscious impression, or the blocking of the inhibitory function of apperception, resulting in the formation of accidental and unnoticed associations (1908/ 11, Vol III, pp 572 f). Wundt's sympathy for the perseveration principle was not increased when it was offered by Ach (1905) as the basis for 'systematic experimental introspection', a bad example of the Ausfragemethode, Despite his vigorous pro- tests, the concept of perseveration was accepted by virtually all leading German psychologists of the time, including his former students KiJlpe (1922, pp 196 ff) and Meumann (1908, pp 106 f). We can scarcely expect that any kind of factual evidence could have convinced him of the existence of 'perseverations', in the sense of ideas entering into consciousness on the basis of their own internal dynamics. This would have violated one of the basic principles of his psychology, viz., the embeddedness of all mental events in a continuous system (kontinuierlicher Zusammenhang) : A single event cannot occur outside of the system, nor is it possible that a system exists without being supported by the single event (1894, p 102). The Reformulation of the Association Doctrine Wundt's revision of the association doctrine is intimately connected with his analysis of recognition and recollection. His interest in these matters was provoked by a controversy between two Danish psychologists, his former student Alfred Lehmann and Harald H6ffding. The Lehmann-H6ffding controversy dealt with the question whether all forms of association could be reduced to either similarity or contiguity, and it used the analysis of recognition to decide this question. Lehmann (1889) had carried out some experiments on the recognition of simple sensory qualities; they resulted in the conclusion that recognition always works either by the evocation of a memory image or by the recalling of a name attached to the stimulus - according to Lehmann, both cases of association by contiguity. It is against Leh- mann's attempt to reduce all forms of association to the contiguity principle that H6ffding (1889/90) stressed the immediacy of the act of recognition, which is 144 E. Scheerer embodied in a specific Bekanntbeitsqualitdt and can only be explained on the basis of association by similarity. Wundt took a reconciliatory position in the Lehmann-H6ffding controversy by incorporating arguments from both sides in his own analysis. Proceeding from a re- definition of the concept of association, he developed a taxonomy of recognition and recollection processes and sought to clarify the role of emotional elements in these processes (1892). According to Wundt, the basic fault of the traditional doctrine of associations is that it has considered the idea as the irreducible element entering into associative connections. Wundt suggested instead that associative processes operating on the elementary components (sensations, simple feelings) of mental compounds account for the formation of ideas themselves, as well as for their succession in time. The traditional 'laws of association' (similarity, contrast, coexistence, contiguity) are superficial classifications based on the product of the functioning of more elementary processes. As long as we are moving at the level of associative products, then the only fundamental distinction is between simultaneous and successive associations; in the former the components are simultaneously given as a whole, while in the latter they order themselves in a temporal sequence (1892, p 333). The simultaneous vs. successive awareness of the products of associative connections is a function of the number of 'disposable compounds' (disponible Gebilde) that enter into associative products, and of the degree of 'facility' (Leicbtigkeit) with which the connections are formed. The temporal dynamics of associative products are a function of apperceptive processes, and it is entirely possible that under the phenomenal simultaneity of associations a functional succession of their elements is hidden (1908/11, Vol III, p 510). The study of the temporal parameters of associative products and the conditions responsible for them is the subject-matter of the psychological analysis of association. There is another, more basic task, which defines the subject-matter of the psychological theory of associations. It consists in the explanation of the surface dynamics of associations by reducing them to the functioning of elementary connective processes. There are two such processes: connection by the identity of elements, and connection of different elements presupposing their spatio-temporal contiguity (1892, pp 340-342; 1908/11, Vol 'ili, pp 532-538). Association by identity functions immediately, while association by contiguity has a mediated function. The traditional 'laws' of similarity and contiguity do not coincide with the Wundtian distinction between association by identity and that by contiguity. Every instance of association of ideas is based on botb identity and contiguity of elements, but depending on the prevalence of one these factors the final product may take the shape of a similarity or of a contiguity association (1892, p 342). The Taxonomy of Recognition and Recollection Wundt exhibited some vacillation when it came to fitting the processes of recognition and recollection into the conceptual scheme outlined above. In 1892 and 1896, both recognition and recollection are presented as instances of successive association, but in the final version of the theory recognition is considered as a special case of assimilation (i.e., simultaneous association), and the label 'successive association' is Wilhelm Wundt's Psychology of Memory 145 restricted to recollection processes. Despite these changes the basic approach remained the same. There is a basic functional continuity between recognition and recollection in that both processes involve the reproduction of elements of earlier experience on the basis of identity and contiguity connections to an idea at present in consciousness. However, in recollection there are 'impediments' (Hemmnisse) working against the assimilation of the reproduced elements into the reproducing idea, and this results in the formation of a separate memory image which can be clearly distinguished from the reproducing idea. In recognition, the reproduced elements can be fitted into the reproducing idea, and the succession (if there is any) refers to the transformation of a temporally continuous, unitary idea, and to the temporal relationships between the emotional components of the recognition process and their 'ideational basis' (Vorstel- lungsgrundlage). The best way to approach Wundt's analysis of recognition is to consider what happens in the type of experiment performed by Wolfe (1886) and Lehmann (1889), where a same/different judgment about two simple stimuli separated by time intervals no longer than 2 min was required. For Wundt this was a case of 'immediate recognition' (unmittelbares Wiedererkennen). He had little use for the simplistic interpre- tation that recognition is based on a comparison or match between the comparison stimulus and the memory image of the standard stimulus. Instead, he believed that immediate recognition was based on the assimilation of elementary components of the perception of the standard stimulus into the perception of the comparison stimulus, plus a specific feeling of recognition. Two aspects of this description require special comment. First: the elementary components that enter into the assimilation product are often derived, according to Wundt, from organic sensations accompanying the perceptual act, such as articulatory sensations. And second: the feeling of recognition is aroused by exactly those elements of an earlier idea that cannot be assimilated into a new idea, but remain in the 'background of consciousness' (1896, p 279). In its own historical context, the first aspect may have been a concession to K~ilpe's view that recognition is based on organic sensations (K~ilpe 1893, pp 178 f), while from a modern perspective it could be considered as an anticipation of motor theories of perception. The second aspect defines a paradoxical component of Wundt's approach as outlined in the first edition of the Grundriss, viz., that the feeling of recognition is based on the dissimilarity between previous and current experience! Actually in 1896 Wundt had already been careful to point out that it is not the unassimilated elements per se, but their relation to the idea currently in consciousness, that gives rise to the feeling of recognition (p 279); but he apparently became aware of the danger that his theory could be misconstrued as an implausible 'mismatch theory' of recognition. Accordingly, in the last edition of the Grundziige he proposes that the feeling of recognition contains two components. One of them, the 'feeling of fittingness' (Gefiibl der f)bereinstimmung) results from the identity of the feelings attending those elements of earlier and current ideas that can be assimilated to each other, while a feeling of surprise is aroused by unassimilable ideational elements loom- ing in the backround of consciousness (1908/11, Vol Ill, pp 511 f). Immediate recognition is a special case in that the elements assimilated into the current idea come from a single previous idea, and the number of assimilable elements 146 E. Scheerer far surpasses the number of elements that cannot be assimilated. If the second of these conditions is not fulfilled we have another case, viz., mediated recognition (mittelbares Wiedererkennen). Here, recognition is not based on properties of the object itself, but on features accidentally connected with the object - for instance, we recognize a person because he is accompanied by another person known to us (1896, p 281). As a result, the process of recognition may lose its unitary character and may be resolved in a succession of stages (e.g., perception and recognition in the proper sense; 1896, p 281), which can be studied by the substraction methods developed by Donders. Another consequence is that the feelings of recognition may follow the ideational elements on which they are based, while in immediate recognition the reverse is true. However, it is not necessary that the accessory circumstances that mediate recognition are apperceived before the idea itself is recognized. For instance, recognition is often based on the names of objects or persons (cf. Lehmann's experiments), but for this to occur it is not necessary that we at once clearly remember the name (1896, p 279). Immediate recognition passes over to mediated recognition when the recognition refers to an object that either has been encountered long ago, or has been encountered more than once. The latter case is the starting point for the evolution of another process, viz., 'sensory cognition '1 (sensoriscbes Erkennen). In sensory cognition, the elements assimilated into a new idea are derived from an indefinite series of objects, such as tables, flowers, etc., and the cognition of an object does not presuppose that we have ever seen the same object before (1896, p 282). Sensory cognition may be characterized by a specific feeling akin to the feeling of recognition; but the intensity of this feeling decreases the more an object belongs to a very familiar class of objects, and the better it matches the features common to the class of objects. If the specific feeling component is lacking altogether, then we speak of mere perception rather than of sensory cognition (1896, p 282). Unfortunately, Wundt is totally silent about the processes by which we arrive at 'common features' (gemeinsame Merkrnale) of a class of objects; but it should be clear from the preceding that he favors a feature model of 'cognition', rather than a holistic one. The process of immediate recognition evolves in a quite different direction when the ideational components aroused by some idea currently in consciousness are merged into a separate mental compound which is directly (i.e., rather than by being assimilated into a current idea) referred to an earlier encountered impression. In this case we speak of recollection rather than recognition (1896, p 289). The experimental paradigm for the study of recollection is the association experiment; i.e., a definite idea is produced by some sensory impression, and the idea reproduced by association is to be reported. The earliest Wundtian study involving the association experiment was Trauscholdt's (1882) work, resulting in a classification of word association responses reproduced in the successive editions of the Grundziige (e.g., 1908/11, Vol III, p 523). But Wundt became more and more dissatisfied with the 'word method' and the classification of word association responses, and in the end he saw their value only in a

1 I am aware that the modern use of 'cognition' as a technical term is much broader than the meaning of Wundt's term sinnlicbes Erkennen. In Wundt's time this term was regularly rendered as 'cognition', and indeed the pair 'cognition/recognition' is the only way to express the meaning conveyed by the German pair Erkennen/Wiedererkennen Wilhelm Wundt's Psychology of Memory 147 rough quantitative estimate of individual differences in the course of thought (ibid., p 525). The 'word method' was now superseded by the 'picture method' introduced by Scripture (1892), i.e., the evocation of associations by pictures without temporal constraints or time measurements. The observer's reports were subjected to a qualitative analysis. The main import of this analysis was that it stressed the variety of components that enter into the recollection process (visual images, articulatory sensations, emotional components), the floating and inconstant nature of memory images, and the mediated nature of allegedly 'freely rising' ideas. Wundt did not present a taxonomy of recollection processes embodying the clear delineation of special cases, as he did for recognition processes.

The Experimental Work

General Overview The experimental work on memory carried out at the Leipzig laboratory presents several peculiarities which clearly set it off from most of the contemporaneous work on the topic. Looking at the experimental procedure, we notice an almost exclusive reliance on single-trial experiments which used single stimuli, as opposed to the multiple-trial experiments which involved the learning of memory lists, carried out, for instance, in G.E. Mtiller's laboratory. There were two reasons for Wundt's low opinion of the 'learning experiments'. First, he thought that they were modeled after a type of school learning he himself despised, and thus essentially served the needs of practical- technological application of psychology to education. At best, they were irrelevant to basic research in psychology, and at worst they were positively harmful both to the pursuit of theoretically relevant knowledge in psychology and to educational practice (1909, pp 14 f). And second, he described the process of learning in terms of a goal-directed activity involving continuous voluntary regulation. As a consequence, the results of learning experiments basically reflect the functioning of apperception under conditions so complex that they prevent an analysis of the associative functions underlying the reproduction of ideas (1908/11, Vol III, p 557). Such an analysis was only possible by means of an experimental paradigm involving only two events (presentation of a standard stimulus and recognition or recall) separated by a variable time interval. Here, the apperceptive functions could be held constant by being restricted to the perception of the standard stimulus and the comparison stimulus, and the dependency of recognition accuracy on the time interval could be considered as an associative function (ibid., p 557). In spite of Wundt's scepticism the Leipzig laboratory could not entirely cut itself off from the enthusiasm for 'learning experiments', as witnessed by Wirth's (1903) construction of an improved version of the memory drum. A second feature of Wundtian memory research was the distinct predilection for measures based on recognition, as opposed to recall. Recognition was preferable because it presented the best opportunity to keep apperception constant, and because it allowed the application of psyehophysical methodology. On the other hand, Wundt believed in a basic continuity of recognition and recall as long as both were based on the assimilation of elements from a single previously occurring idea. Therefore in 148 E. Scheerer some of the experiments on the memory for time and for simple sensory qualities the method of adjustment (Metbode der Gleicbeinstellung) was employed as a variant of the other psychophysical methods based on recognition. In the same vein, a much later study by Jesinghaus (1912b) had the purpose of demonstrating that recognition and recall measures were similarly affected by various experimental manipulations. And finally, we notice that work at the Leipzig laboratory differed from that of most other laboratories by the almost exclusive Use of nonverbal stimulus material which preferably was varied along a single dimension. The use of verbal material was discouraged because verbal units, as a result of their communicative function in speech, are relatively 'constant' mental compounds, and Wundt believed that their almost exclusive use had fostered the dogma of the stability of ideas (1908/11, Vol III, p 522). The relevant experiments carried out at the Leipzig laboratory may be grouped under the following headings: a) Memory for time; b) Memory for simple sensory attributes; c) Association experiments; d) Learning experiments. The association experiments by Scripture (1892) have already been discussed; they were later replicated by Cordes (1901). The group of studies on the 'reproduction of temporal ideas' are an outgrowth of the very extensive Wundtian research on the 'time sense' and must be seen in this context, an endeavor outside the scope of the present paper. How- ever, the experiments of sensory memory and the learning experiments will be dealt with briefly because they present some results which could be interesting to the modern memory investigator.

Experiments on Sensory Memory The work on sensory memory comprises four papers, based on the recognition (or reproduction) of the following attributes: pitch of pure tones (Wolfe 1886); spatial distance (Radoslawow-Hadji-Denkow 1900); pitch of sung vowels (Berlage 1910); and color (Heidenhain, quoted by Wundt 1908/11, Vol III, p 461). The most straightforward of these papers is the study by Wolfe. He found that the recognition accuracy for 'same' judgments declined in a logarithmic fashion as a function of the delay of the comparison stimulus varying between 2 s and 60 s. The logarithmic curve was superimposed by 'oscillations', a minor one in the form of a dip in recognition accuracy occurring at brief intervals below 2 s and presumably repeating itself in 2-s intervals, and a major one, in the form of an increase in accuracy, in the region of 20-30 s. All of these results were replicated by Radoslawow, who used the extremely cumbersome method of limits to measure the difference limen for distances between dots. Strangely enough, Wundt's interest was provoked more by the irregularities of the accuracy vs. delay curve than by its regular overall shape. He related the 'oscillations' of recognition accuracy to a presumably general periodicity of attention coming into play when a state of strained expectation has to be maintained. The 'brief' oscillations (local maxima at 2 s and multiples thereof) were taken as an expression of the state of expectation itself, while the fatigue arising from the maintenance of expectation was thought to be reflected in the 'long' oscillations (local minimum between 20 and 30 s). Additional support for the first part of this hypothesis came from the op- timal interval between warning signal and stimulus in reaction time experiments. The Wilhelm Wundt's Psychology of Memory 149 second part was brought into relation to the rhythmical oscillations of Kraepelin's 'work curve' (continuous additions of single digits extended over 90 min), but in view of the very different temporal ranges involved this appears to be a somewhat far-fetch- ed analogy. Nevertheless, and in spite of the fact that later investigations (Angell and Harwood 1899; Berlage 1910) failed to provide clear-cut support for the two types of oscillations in recognition accuracy, Wundt presented and discussed the curves obtain- ed by Wolfe and Radoslawow in all subsequent editions of the Grundzu'ge. I hay6 not been able to locate a definite Wundtian explanation for the logarithmic decline in recognition accuracy and for the fact that accuracy reached a lower asymptote after 60 s in the experiments of Wolfe, Radoslawow and other invetsigators of the period. The lower asymptote was thought to present the performance limit imposed by 'absolute memory' (Radoslawow 1900, p 389;Wundt 1908/11, Vol III, pp 465 f), but no attempt was made to relate this performance limitation to Lehmann's (1889) finding that only five steps of a simple sensory attribute could be recognized without error. As far as the steep decline of accuracy is concerned, many contemporaneous investigators favored an explanation in terms of a fading memory image, and support for this contention was sought by the study of the relative rate of overestima- tions and underestimations of the comparison stimulus with respect to the standard stimulus (i.e., the 'time error'). Within the Wundtian school Radoslawow was the first to point out that amount and direction of the time error depend on the way in which the comparison stimulus was perceived, rather than on any changes that occurred during the retention interval. The fading memory image theory was uncongenial to Wundt's approach, at any rate, and the same applied to the notion that dispositions underwent an autonomous decay; this would have implied that they were entities leading a life separated from that of conscious processes. The nearest approximation to a general theory of forgetting in the spirit of Wundt is a statement by Jesinghaus (1912a, p 362) to the effect that forgetting occurs as a consequence of the change in the 'total mental condition' (geistige Gesarntverfassung) with respect to the condition under which a disposition has been formed, which makes it difficult to find a 'point of contact' (Ankniipfungspunkt) leading to the disposition because common elements are lacking. Wundt's 'assimilation theory' of recognition here takes a shape approach- ing modern 'retrieval failure' theories of forgetting. From this statement a way can be paved to Wundt's explanation of a finding which was quite familiar to investigators working in his laboratory but which probably sounds very strange to modern ears: The attempt to keep attention focused on the standard stimulus (or the memory image of it) during the retention interval was detrimental to subsequent recognition! In Wolfe's study this statement was based on introspective reports, but Radoslawow provided objective evidence by demonstrating that distraction during the retention interval often had a positive and (except for one case, see below) never had a negative effect on recognition. The facilitating effect of distraction on recognition was taken for granted by Wundt despite some evidence to the contrary (Angell 1900), and he explained it by the assumption that reproductions of the standard stimulus result in 'intermediate' ideas of indefinite quality but bearing some resemblance to the standard stimulus. These intermediate ideas tend to obscure the assimilation product occasioned by the comparison stimulus, because they supply disparate elements taking part in the assimilation process (1908/11, Vol III p 484) - 150 E. Scheerer a sort of subject-produced interference by similarity. Support for this position could have come from a special type of distraction experiment carried out by Radoslawow, who showed that spatial distances intervening between the standard and the comparison stimulus had a detrimental effect on recognition which within certain limits was proportional to their similarity to the standard stimulus. For some unknown reason Wundt did not discuss this finding in the Grundziige. From the standpoint of what we know today about the role of verbal rehearsal processes in memorization, Wundt's firm conviction about the deleterious effects of 'reproductions' (i.e., rehearsals) in the retention period may seem ill founded. He would probably have conceded that owing to the 'stability' of word ideas they were unlikely to function as a source of elements to be assimilated at the time of recognition. Another component of the rehearsal process, subvocal articulatory activity, was acknowledged as a condition favoring retention by the Leipzig researchers. In a careful study involving the reproduction of sung vowels after variable time intervals, Berlage (1910) demonstrated superior accuracy of recall when the standard tone was sung by the subject himself, compared to the case where it was sung by another person. Without adducing experimental evidence, he also expressed the conviction that 'internal singing' would be conductive to better retention (pp 119 f). And finally, Wundt's theory about assimilative interactions between the elements of reproducing and reproduced ideas found support in Berlage's demonstration that the pitch of a vowel was less accurately recalled when its vowel formants were changed with respect to the standard stimulus. Learning Experiments For reasons outlined earlier, learning experiments occupied a less prominent place in the Leipzig laboratory than the one-trial experiments just reported. Reuther (1906) was the first to carry out an experiment of this sort in Leipzig, predictably enough by means of a recognition method. Reuther should receive due credit for the inven- tion of the 'old vs. new' discrimination task which for the modern reader is connected with the work of Bernbach (1967) and others. Unfortunately, Reuther chose to em- ploy the somewhat perverse 'method of identical series'. That is, presumably without the knowledge of his subjects he presented an identical series of four-digit numbers all over again and left it to his subjects to decide which items they had seen already. The method was subjected to devastating criticism by G.E. Miiller (1905), and in his rejoinder Reuther (1907) suddenly claimed occasionally to have inserted Verbiitungs- reiben, i.e., series containing some items previously not shown. In his first experiments Jesinghaus (1912b) apparently used this technique in a more systematic way, but false alarms were exceedingly rare and consequently he dropped it again! In general, the failure to introduce a proper balance between 'old' and 'new' items ren- ders it impossible to re-analyze the results of these studies by means of modern tech- niques. The theoretical framework adopted by Reuther is typical of the way in which some students at Leipzig simplified the complicated theories of the great master. Reuther set himself the task to study the factors primarily responsible for the creation of dispositions (primdr dispositionsschaffende Faktoren). Expressed in experimental operations, these are exposure duration, number of presentations, length of Wilhelm Wundt's Psychology of Memory 151 the memory lists, and interval between presentations. These operations are introduced with the purpose of varying the temporal course of attention, which at the psychological level is the primary agent of the creation of dispositions. The quantity of dispositions at a given time after presentation should be proportional to the attentional energy used up in apperception (Reuther 1906, p 75). Provided that the level of attention remains constant throughout an experiment, the amount of material retained should be proportional to the total time available for apperception, a predic- tion borne out by the data when replotted as a function of the total time spent on a memory list, irrespective of how it was distributed over time. Thus, Reuther was the first to formulate and test a 'total time hypothesis' of learning (cf. Cooper and Pantie 1967). Only the inter-item interval did not enter into the law of 'total apperception time': performance first increased and then decreased when the interval was increased. It is no surprise that this was explained by a combination of the restitution of attentional energy and fatigue following the deployment of attentional energy. Reuther's transformation of Wundt's concept of apperception into a hypothetical construct called 'psychophysical energy' and devoid of the rich psychological content Wundt had conferred on it (cf. Reuther 1906, p 73) perhaps reflects the influence of Wilhelm Wirth, in whose later work this tendency assumed a definite shape. From 1908 on, Wirth was codirector of the Leipzig institute and supervised most of the experimental work carried out at the institute. Wirth also had a strong interest in experimental methodology, and this is reflected in Jesinghaus' (1912b) not very illuminating comparison of recognition and recall measures for the 'strength' of dispositions. The study presents an interesting minor feature which could contribute to a better understanding of what Wundt meant by the 'feeling of recognition'. Jesinghaus asked his subjects to rate, on a three-point scale, the strength of their recognition feeling and, in the recall trials, the strength of their confidence. In general the results of these ratings did not add very much to what could be deduced from the accuracy and latency data themselves, but at one point Jesinghaus reports a result which could be of interest to modern readers. One 'slow' learner (as assessed by the recall data) did not differ from the 'fast' learners with respect to recognition accuracy per se, but by the fact that his confidence judgments were biased toward the upper end of the scale (Jesinghaus 1912b, p 453);he had apparently employed a very stringent criterion. If we remember that for Wundt sensations and feelings represented the objective and the subjective side of mental processes, respectively, then it is perhaps admissible to draw a paraltcl between the sensory and emotional components of recognition in his theory and the modern distinction between sensititvity and evaluation against a criterion.

Epilogue

Why was Wilhelm Wundt's psychology of memory superseded by the 'Verbal Learning' approach which originated with Ebbinghaus? And what kind of lesson could the modern memory researcher draw from the study of the Wundtian psychology of memory? One answer to the first question has already been given by Wilhelm Wundt himself. A younger generation of psychologists and educators, intent on applying the results of psychological research to education, was less interested in subtle analyses 152 E. Scheerer

of recognition and recollection than in the parameters of efficient learning. The fore- most figure in this movement was Ernst Meumann, Wundt's former student and personal friend. The title of one of his books is revealing: Memory: Its Technique and Economy (Meumann 1912). If we look at the types of question that interested Meurnann's generation (whole-part-learning, massed vs. distributed practice, etc.), then we can only agree with Wundt's pessimistic expectation that the new movement could only lead to a trivialization of psychological research. Another consequence of the trend toward educational application correctly predicted by Wundt was a revival of faculty psychology; in one of his books Meumann (1908) discussed various components of intelligence, such as memory, imagination, and will, in a fashion reminiscent of the old faculty psychology, and it is no coincidence that he later became deeply involved in the mental testing movement. In the original version of his essay 'On Pure and Applied Psychology' (1908) Wundt made an almost desperate attempt to bring Meumann back to the track of 'pure' research. But to no avail: the new movement of 'Experimental Education', finding the enthusiastic support of the associations of school teachers, was firmly on its way, and with it the study of the 'economy of memory'. But even among the investigators who shared Wundt's allegiance to 'pure' psychology his theories did not fare well. Under the influence of G.E. Mfiller, who had firmly established himself as the leading authority on memory, almost nobody dared to express scepticism about the existence of the 'perseveration tendency'. Although Mfiller himself was the rocber de bronze of association psychology in Germany, he did not share Wundt's view that recognition was based on association. And finally, the disposition theory gave way to a resurgence of theorizing about 'memory traces', at the hands of both the association psychologists and their antagonists, the Gestalt psychologists. The association concept is perhaps the aspect of Wundt's psychology that is most objectionable to the modern 'cognitivist' who is justly proud of having thrown aboard the associationism inherent in the tradition of behaviorism. But Wundt's association concept really had nothing in common with simplistic ideas about 'bonds' or 'connections' which are spread out like clothes-lines between the two poles of stimulus and response and can be strengthened, rearranged, extinguished, etc. At the most general level, the association concept was Wundt's expression for the system-like, coherent nature of mental processes. More to the point for the modern memory researcher, Wundt's transfer of the association concept from the level of ideas to the level of elements of ideas may be interpreted as an anticipation of modern 'feature set' theories. The Wundtian 'idea' was a 'fuzzy' set of features having considerable internal structure. In order to obtain an appreciation of Wundt's potential significance for the contemporary psychology of memory, we can engage in a little thought experiment and try to imagine how Wundt himself would have reacted to some core concepts frequent- ly used today. In the first place, I think that Wundt would object to the concept of 'storage'. The notion of data being stored away and awaiting retrieval in their original form would appear to him yet another form of revival of Herbartian metaphysics. He would pass a similar verdict on the concept of 'memory trace' and the host of notions surrounding Wilhelm Wundt's Psychology of Memory 153 it - 'trace strength', 'trace decay', 'interference among traces', etc. There are formula- tions of the trace concept couched in purely dispositional terms, and with these he would agree. He would also express considerable interest in physiological research concerning the formation of memory traces, as long as it does not rest on the assumption of a fixed cortical localization of traces. He would find another problematic aspect of modern theorizing in the idea of a 'memory code', in the sense that one and the same object is thought to be represented by a multiplicity of codes varying in modality (visual, auditory, articulatory ...) or 'depth' (physical, semantic), which moreover are elaborated in a succession of 'processing stages'. The notion of assimilation (and in the later version of his theory also the notion of complication) expressed Wundt's conviction that the different 'elements' of an 'idea' are merged into a compact and more-than-additive whole; and in his analysis of the reading process he made it clear that in practiced reading 'the apperception of the word and of the concept form a single act' (1900 b, Vol I, p 536). To be sure, it is possible to carry out an abstraction resulting in the separation of the components of a unitary mental compound; but when carrying out this abstraction we must be careful not to confuse the conscious processes themselves with their objective conditions (1908/11, Vol I, p 45). For Wundt, this was the typical mistake of the 'psychology based on reflexion' (Reflexionspsycbologie);I am almost sure that the modern way of defining mental processes in terms of experimental operations would qualify for him as an instance of the Reflexionspsycbologie. A final point of dissension refers to a tendency in modern cognitive psychology which Wundt would call 'intellectualism'. In a broad sense, this tendency makes itself felt in the almost total neglect of the affective side of cognitive processes, which in Wundt's view was inseparably connected with their ideational side. But even within the ideational side, much of the modern work on cognitive processes suffers from a tendency Wundt used to denounce as 'logicism'. Slogans like 'perception involves categorization' would be anathema for him. He specifically rejected the attempt to identify the process of 'cognition' with the subsumption of an instance under a superordinate category. In Wundt's time, the error of 'logicism' was committed by psychologists who adhered to a tradition of scholasticism (e.g., Brentano); in our time, the model builders in the artificial intelligence tradition are the culprits. There can be no doubt that the current trend in the study of cognitive processes is towards its emancipation from the shortcomings just noted. An occasional return to the psychology of Wilhelm Wundt could very well be helpful in this process.

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