Wilhelm Wundt in the context of "Psychological research"

Empirical psychology (German: empirische Psychologie) is the work of a number of nineteenth century German-speaking pioneers of experimental psychology, including William James, Wilhelm Wundt and others. It also includes several philosophical theories of psychology which based themselves on the epistemological standpoint of empiricism, e.g., Franz Brentano's Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (1874).

Gestalt psychology, gestaltism, or configurationism is a school of psychology and a theory of perception that emphasises the processing of entire patterns and configurations, and not merely individual components. It emerged in the early twentieth century in Austria and Germany as a rejection of basic principles of Wilhelm Wundt's and Edward Titchener's elementalist and structuralist psychology.

Gestalt psychology is often associated with the adage, "The whole is something else than the sum of its parts". In Gestalt theory, information is perceived as wholes rather than disparate parts which are then processed summatively. As used in Gestalt psychology, the German word Gestalt (/ɡəˈʃtælt, -ˈʃtɑːlt/ gə-SHTA(H)LT, German: [ɡəˈʃtalt] ; meaning "form") is interpreted as "pattern" or "configuration".

Benjamin Atwood Lee Whorf (/hwɔːrf/; April 24, 1897 – July 26, 1941) was an American linguist and fire prevention engineer best known for proposing the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis. He believed that the structures of different languages shape how their speakers perceive and conceptualize the world. Whorf saw this idea, named after him and his mentor Edward Sapir, as having implications similar to those of Einstein's principle of physical relativity. However, the concept originated from 19th-century philosophy and thinkers like Wilhelm von Humboldt and Wilhelm Wundt.

Whorf initially pursued chemical engineering but developed an interest in linguistics, particularly Biblical Hebrew and indigenous Mesoamerican languages. His groundbreaking work on the Nahuatl language earned him recognition, and he received a grant to study it further in Mexico. He presented influential papers on Nahuatl upon his return. Whorf later studied linguistics with Edward Sapir at Yale University while working as a fire prevention engineer.

Psychology is defined as "the scientific study of behavior and mental processes". Philosophical interest in the human mind and behavior dates back to the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Persia, Greece, China, and India.

Psychology as a field of experimental study began in 1854 in Leipzig, Germany, when Gustav Fechner created the first theory of how judgments about sensory experiences are made and how to experiment on them. Fechner's theory, recognized today as Signal Detection Theory, foreshadowed the development of statistical theories of comparative judgment and thousands of experiments based on his ideas (Link, S. W. Psychological Science, 1995). In 1879, Wilhelm Wundt founded the first psychological laboratory dedicated exclusively to psychological research in Leipzig, Germany. Wundt was also the first person to refer to himself as a psychologist. A notable precursor to Wundt was Ferdinand Ueberwasser (1752–1812), who designated himself Professor of Empirical Psychology and Logic in 1783 and gave lectures on empirical psychology at the Old University of Münster, Germany. Other important early contributors to the field include Hermann Ebbinghaus (a pioneer in the study of memory), William James (the American father of pragmatism), and Ivan Pavlov (who developed the procedures associated with classical conditioning).

Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (German: Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte) (1874; second edition 1924) is an 1874 book by the Austrian philosopher Franz Brentano, in which the author argues that the goal of psychology should be to establish exact laws. Brentano's best known book, it established his reputation as a philosopher, helped to establish psychology as a scientific discipline, and influenced Husserlian phenomenology, analytic philosophy, gestalt psychology, and the philosopher Alexius Meinong's theory of objects. It has been called Brentano's best known work and has been compared to the physician Wilhelm Wundt's Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie and the Project for a Scientific Psychology of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis.

Edward Bradford Titchener (11 January 1867 – 3 August 1927) was an English psychologist who studied under Wilhelm Wundt for several years. Titchener is best known for creating his version of psychology that described the structure of the mind: structuralism. After becoming a professor at Cornell University, he created the largest doctoral program at that time in the United States. His first graduate student, Margaret Floy Washburn, became the first woman to be granted a PhD in psychology (1894).