lo6 REPORT OF THE PSYCHOLOGY COMMITTEE 



mittee to prepare for this report a summary account of his 

 war service. This contribution, which follows, is one of the 

 most interesting chapters of the scientific history of the war. 

 It Is more detailed than other sections of this report because 

 practically nothing has been published heretofore on most of 

 the topics. 



Report of Lieutenant Commander Dodge 



"The subcommittee on vision shared with some of the 

 other subcommittees in Psychology the disadvantages of 

 mutual Inaccessibility. Questions that were submitted com- 

 monly required an immediate estimate for prompt action. 

 There was neither time for nor expectation of a complete or 

 final solution. The military situations that we had to ana- 

 lyze were not infrequently of a highly confidential character. 

 In some cases the suggestion that the matters be referred to a 

 committee for investigation met with quite emphatic disap- 

 proval. Moreover, the Initial visual problems that we came 

 upon commonly turned out to be so Intimately related to 

 non-visual factors that they became the least important part 

 of the investigation. So It came about that in spite of the 

 enthusiastic cooperation of a splendid committee, the com- 

 mittee form of partitioned investigations In our case proved 

 impracticable during war times. We had to work as indi- 

 viduals at top speed. 



"In the early psychological war problems in whose solu- 

 tion it was my privilege to participate, the conspicuous fea- 

 tures were the failure of military authorities to appreciate 

 the reality of the mental problems, even when they were the 

 main problems of a situation, and the failure of military tra- 

 ditions to meet the new problems of human engineering which 

 modern warfare occasioned. The great service of the mili- 

 tary psychologist was to analyze out of the situations the 

 human and mental problem, to give these phases of the mili- 

 tary problems precise formulation and then to bring to bear 

 his laboratory and scientific traditions In meeting the situa- 

 tions as they were analyzed. 



'The military danger In the next few years of peace is 



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