Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt b. 1832
Wilhelm Wundt was a German physician, physiologist,
philosopher, and professor, and the first person to call himself a
psychologist. Separating psychology from philosophy he looked at the mind in a
structured way, albeit an introspective one, and founded the first psychology
lab in 1879. Considered the father of experimental psychology he focused on
three areas of mental functioning; thoughts, images and feelings. Aware that
gestures had been much overlooked since ancient times Wundt produced work which
concerned their use in conversation, including various communities in his
studies. Concerned with link between gesture and thought, he concluded that
gestural communication faithfully mirrors the emotions and inner world of the
speaker, and that humans share a number of expressive gestures with other
animals. Gestures are described as pictorial scripts, non-preserved sketches in
the air. While some of them replace specific properties, others are associated
with the abstract.
