Page:Mary Whiton Calkins - Experimental Psychology at Wellesley College (The American Journal of Psychology, 1892-11-01).pdf/2

Rh the general direction of the instructor. The students were provided with simple directions and were required to identify the most important parts of the brain. The results of this work were very satisfactory. The students, even those who had dreaded tho dissection, were practically unanimous in regard to its value, as clearing up the difficult points in cerebral anatomy. In the class room, during this week, in which the dissection was going on, the principal theories of cerebral localization were discussed.

The next six weeks were spent in experimental study of sensation, About seventy experiments were performed by the students on sensations of contact, of pressure, of temperature, of taste, of hearing and of sight. ”The experiments, almost without exception, were selected from those suggested by Dr. B. O. Sanford in his Laboratory Course in Psychology,” butre-arranged with reference to the plan of the lectures and of the class discussion. Papyrographed descriptions of the experiments were distributed to the students and commented on in class before the experiments were undertaken. The instructor kept daily laboratory hours in order to answer questions and to offer assistance. Each student was responsible for the record of her own experiments.

In class, reports were made on the results of experiments, and recitations were conducted on the physiology of the different senses. The bearing of the different experiments on the theory of perception was carefully discussed. Special effort was made o free the word “sensation” from the vague, dualistic meaning which it often carries with it; sensation was treated as essentially “the first thing in the way of consciousness.” The three theories of perception, Associationist, Intellectualist and Physiological-psychological, were carefully studied, and in this connection parts of Dr. James’s chapters on “The Mind-Stuff Theory,” “Sensations” and “Perception” were assigned for reading. Of course, in so elementary a course no new experimental results were gained. All the more important experiments usually performed were repeated. The taste experiments were so unpopular that I should never repeat them in a general class of students who are not specializing in the subject, I should also omit most experiments involving exact measurement. For instance, I should do no more than familiarize the class with the use of the Galton bar and of the perimeter.

Some of the students were genuinely interested in the experiments, carried them further than required and made independent observations ; a large number, on the other hand, performed them conscientiously, but without especial enthusiasm; some cordially detested them from beginning to end; but almost all recognized their value as a stimulus to observation and as a basis for psychological theory.

The following questions, asked at an informal, forty-five minute examination, suggest the character of the experimental work:—

1. Describe fully the following experiments. State the theories on which they bear and the conclusions which you draw from them:—1. The “colored shadows” experiment.

2. Scheiner’s experiment.

2. What are the dermal senses?

3. What is the (so-called) joint sense? Describe an experiment proving its existence.

Tn the study of association, the old distinction between association “by contiguity” and that “by similarity” was replaced by one “between association,” in which no part of the earlier