ABSTRACT
Experimental psychology just marked its one hundred year anniversary. In celebration, the 23rd International Congress of Psychology was held at Leipzig, Germany, where the first experimental laboratory was established in 1879. The theme was, of course, to honor Wilhelm Wundt, credited as the founder of experimental psychology. Also, a special series of symposiums and addresses was held at the 1979 meeting of the American Psychological Association in New York City. Many leading psychologists were invited to these meetings to present historical reviews and critical assessments of their own subfields of psychology. From the comments made in these centennial papers, the common view is that psychological knowledge gained over the first century in each subfield has been noncumulative and incohesive and that the discipline of psychology has become increasingly fragmented rather than unified (Leary, 1980). Despite these negative conclusions, there was also a positive excitement about the future of a new cognitive science. The renaissance of cognitive research in experimental psychology has been brought about by the new developments in psycholinguistics, artificial intelligence (computer technology and cybernetics), and information processing approaches to learning and memory. In retrospect, experimental psychology started at Leipzig with laboratory study of the elements and dimensions of consciousness, then progressed outward to the investigation of environmental-behavioral relations (under the rubric of Behaviorism), and finally, returned to the concern for the construction of Mind (albeit with graphic charts and a proliferation of boxes and arrows). It seems as though experimental psychology, after one hundred years of striving to be scientific and objective in its methodology, has finally rediscovered itself in its origin.
