Wilhelm Wundt
Neuropsychology

Wundt contributed to the state of neuropsychology as it existed at the time in three ways: through his criticism of the theory of localisation (then widespread in neurology), through his demand for research hypotheses founded on both neurological and psychological thinking, and through his neuropsychological concept of an apperception centre in the frontal cortex. Wundt considered attention and the control of attention an excellent example of the desirable combination of experimental psychological and neurophysiological research. Wundt called for experimentation to localise the higher central nervous functions to be based on clear, psychologically based research hypotheses because the questions could not be rendered precisely enough on the anatomical and physiological levels alone.

Wundt based his central theory of apperception on neuropsychological modelling (from the 3rd edition of the Grundzüge onwards). According to this, the hypothetical apperception centre in the frontal cerebral cortex that he described could interconnect sensory, motor, autonomic, cognitive, emotional and motivational process components Wundt thus provided the guiding principle of a primarily psychologically oriented research programme on the highest integrative processes. He is therefore a forerunner of current research on cognitive and emotional executive functions in the prefrontal cerebral cortex, and on hypothetical multimodal convergence zones in the network of cortical and limbic functions. This concept of an interdisciplinary neuroscience is now taken for granted, but Wundt's contribution towards this development has almost been forgotten. C.S. Sherrington repeatedly quotes Wundt's research on the physiology of the reflexes in his textbook, but not Wundt's neuropsychological concepts.
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