Edward B. Titchener

Edward B. Titchener (1876-1927) was an Englishman and a student of Wilhelm Wundt before becoming a professor of psychology at Cornell University. He would put his own spin on Wundt's psychology of consciousness after he emigrated to the United States. Tichener attempted to classify the structures of the mind, not unlike the way a chemist breaks down chemicals into their component parts-water into hydrogen and oxygen for example. Thus, for Titchener, just as hydrogen and oxygen were structures, so were sensations and thoughts. He conceived of hydrogen and oxygen as structures of a chemical compound, and sensations and thoughts as structures of the mind. This approach became known as structuralism.