406 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



The following programme was presented : 



H. L. HoUingworth, Psychological Measurements of the 



"Pulling Power'" of an Advertisement. 



Frederic Lyman Wells, Practise and Individual Differences. 



Joseph Jastrow, . The Physiological Support of the Percep- 



tive Processes. 



Wendell T. Bush, The Emancipation of Intelligence in the 



Study of Philosophy. 



Summary of Papers. 



Dr. HoUingworth discussed the defects of modern methods of "keying" 

 an advertisement and advocated the substitution of psychological tests. 

 The results of an experiment with seventy-five subway advertisements, 

 by the order of merit method, were presented. In cooperation with the 

 New York Advertising Men's League, the keyed results of various kinds 

 of "copy" are being compared with psychological measurements of the 

 same advertisements. The work in progress is directed toward four chief 

 problems: (1) the validity of individual judgments of persuasiveness; 

 (2) the relative strength of the various human instincts as the basis of 

 appeal and conviction; (3) the relative strength of various "effective con- 

 ceptions"; (4) the practical psychology of color in advertising. 



Dr. Wells said : In thirty days' practise with five subjects on the num- 

 ber checking test (a form of the A test) and in the Kraepelinian addition 

 test, the general indication seemed to be that the subjects who did well at 

 the start had as much opportunity for further improvement as those who 

 did poorly. This would indicate that in the functions tested, the relative 

 superiority of certain subjects was a manifestation, not of their being 

 nearer the end of the practise curve, but of an inherent ability to profit 

 more by such practise as they had had. 



Prof. Jastrow said in abstract: The purpose of this paper is to con- 

 sider a more adequate formulation of the relation between the physio- 

 logical factor and a complex sensory process in which it participates. A 

 typical instance is found in the visual perception of distance. The con- 

 ventional statement sets forth that in the presence of a situation requir- 

 ing judgments of distance, we bring into play the physiological mech- 

 anism, testing by the clearness of the retinal image the necessary accom- 

 modation; and concominantly throwing into gear the convergence ap- 

 paratus, and thus tentatively, though quickly, finding the proper adjust- 

 ments, and, lately, that only when this process is accomplished is the 

 product handed over to the mental elaboration which, utilizing this basis, 



