2l8 journal of Comparative Neurologv atici Psychology. 



I shall consider further on the contents of some earlier publica- 

 tions on the color sense of children. I wish here, at the outset, to 

 mention that the aim of my own experiments, of which I treat in 

 the following pages, is not wholly identical with the aims of former 

 authors. It was not my chief concern to determine either how 

 well the child could already distinguish colors, or which color- 

 names he could learn. My prime interest was, rather, to make 

 sure of a diagnosis that would determine whether the child, at two 

 and one-third years of age, showed a normal (trichromatic) color 

 sense, or whether there was any reason to assume the presence of a 

 dichromatic or otherwise abnormal color vision. 



The problem was, therefore, similar to that which Himstedt 

 and P had proposed to ourselves in the year 1902 in certain ex- 

 periments on a dog; at that time, however, we confined ourselves 

 to tests designed to show whether any color sense whatever was 

 present, or whether the animal was totally color blind. This 

 single pomt was decided by the fact that the dog discriminated 

 between red and blue.^ 



In the investigations on the child, as in those on the dog, one 

 requirement was fulfilled, which, so far as I know, has not been 

 taken into account by any previous investigators with animals or 

 children; I took care, namely, that the two colors that were to be 

 distinguished from each other should be shown simultaneously 

 in several sharply diff^erent degrees of brightness. The dog had 

 not to choose between one blue and ot7e red object, but between 

 five or six of each color. The danger was thus avoided of con- 

 cluding that the animal had distinguished between two colors 

 whereas in reality he had chosen only according to brightness. 



The experiments on the child had to be carried out in the same 

 way, and the results that I obtained therefore furnish a much surer 

 answer to the questions proposed than even Preyer's fuller 

 experiments could have yielded. 



Rather as a by-product of my experiments I obtained answers 

 to the question put by Preyer: From a large number of colored 

 objects, which colors can the child most easily pick out and 



'F. Himstedt und W. Nagel. Versuche iiber die Reizwirkung verschiedener Strahlenarten auf 

 Menschen- und Tieraugen. Festschrift der Alhert-Ludwigs-Universitdt in Freiburg 50 jahr. Reg. 

 Jubil. d. Grossherzogs Friedrich. Freiburg, 1902. 



^Himstedt afterward continued his tests with his dog and found, further, that he could recognize 

 the difference between blue and green and between red and green. 



