Wilhelm Wundt opened the Institute for Experimental Psychology at the University of Leipzig in Germany. This was the first laboratory dedicated to psychology, and its opening is usually thought of as the beginning of modern psychology. Indeed, Wundt is often regarded as the father of psychology.
Wundt held that attention was an inner activity that caused ideas to be present to differing degrees in consciousness. He distinguished between perception, which was the entry into the field of attention, and apperception, which was responsible for entry into the inner focus. He assumed that the focus of attention could narrow or widen. This view that has also enjoyed popularity in recent years.
