Editing Idea (section)

===Wilhelm Wundt===
[[Wundt]] widens the term from Kant's usage to include ''conscious representation of some object or process of the external world''. In so doing, he includes not only ideas of [[memory]] and [[imagination]], but also [[perceptual]] processes, whereas other [[psychologist]]s confine the term to the first two groups.<ref name=EB1911/> One of Wundt's main concerns was to investigate conscious processes in their own context by [[experiment]] and [[introspection]]. He regarded both of these as ''exact methods'', interrelated in that experimentation created optimal conditions for introspection. Where the experimental method failed, he turned to other ''objectively valuable aids'', specifically to ''those products of cultural communal life which lead one to infer particular mental motives. Outstanding among these are speech, myth, and social custom.'' Wundt designed the basic mental activity [[apperception]] — a unifying function which should be understood as an activity of the will. Many aspects of his empirical physiological psychology are used today. One is his principles of mutually enhanced contrasts and of [[assimilation (philosophy)|assimilation]] and dissimilation (i.e. in color and form perception and his advocacy of ''objective'' methods of expression and of recording results, especially in language. Another is the principle of heterogony of ends — that multiply motivated acts lead to unintended side effects which in turn become motives for new actions.<ref>Vol 8: 349–351</ref>