Mat 7, 1920] 



SCIENCE 



451 



diiring the summer by Dr. Bagby, for the 

 purpose of exhibiting the extent to which 

 pathological reactive tendencies, existing nor- 

 mally in a state of repression, tend to be 

 released under diminished barometric pres- 

 sures corresponding to fairly high altitudes. 

 The author was separated from the service 

 before the work was completed, but not until 

 after an excellent collection of test-material 

 had been compiled and tested. Arrangements 

 have been made to have the work completed 

 by Lieutenant Isaacs, as soon as the low 

 pressure chamber has been installed in its new 

 location. 



The results of the tests of aptitude for fly- 

 ing, administered by Drs. McComas and 

 Bagby at Taylor and Souther fields imder 

 the direction of Major Stratton in 1918, were 

 worked up in the department imder the 

 direction of Dr. Coover, with the assistance 

 of several members of the stafE. The data 

 indicate that the tests taken as a group have 

 some diagnostic value and that certain of the 

 individual tests if further refined may have 

 considerable practical value. An important 

 fact exhibited by the data is that flying grades 

 do not adequately differentiate aviational 

 ability. About 85 per cent, of the cadets 

 tested at one field was rated within a range 

 of five points on, a scale of 100. This means, 

 practically, that a certain gi'ade was taken as 

 expressing the rating " Fairly good," for ex- 

 ample; and that practically all the men so 

 regarded received the same grade, no means 

 being provided for ranking them within the 

 class within which they fall. This makes a 

 comparison of flying grade with other scores, 

 quite difficult of interpretation. 



The results of a number of tests of avi- 

 ational ability used by Captain Dockeray and 

 Lieutenant Isaacs in the A. E. F. were worked 

 up by those authors here. The data show 

 that the scores of the subjects in two of the 

 tests are highly correlated with the estimate 

 of aviational ability as made by the training 

 department, the coefficients in both cases be- 

 ing approximately 0.73. It is safe to say 

 that if six to eight tests as satisfactory as 

 these were developed, they would afford a 



better basis of prediction of flying-school per- 

 formance than is afforded by the cadets' 

 records in civil life, or by their performance 

 in ground school, etc. It is planned to con- 

 tinue the effort to develop such tests. 



Preliminary work in the department sug^ 

 gested that two forms of test, if s-ufficiently 

 refined, might prove to be quite valuable in 

 diagnosis of aviational ability and in exhibit- 

 ing its impairment. These tests are (1) of 

 the ability to control the coordinated activity 

 of certain systems of voluntary muscles; and 

 (2) of the relative time required for selective 

 reaction to one of three signals presented suc- 

 cessively and in irregular sequence (a) imder 

 a standard condition of obseiwation and (b) 

 under a condition of observation so difficult 

 as to be trying. This work is still in the 

 early stages, due largely to the delay in. 

 making the annual appropriation available, 

 and to the general disorganization and tur- 

 moil incidental to the closing of Hazelhurst 

 Field and moving the laboratory hither. 



In addition to the research activities re- 

 capitulated above, some considerable energy 

 of the department was devoted to supervision 

 of the psychological features of the routine 

 tests run at branch laboratories; to the ad- 

 ministration of classification-tests at the local 

 fields; and to cooperation with other depart- 

 ments in the administration of tests in which 

 the department of psychology was not directly 

 interested. 



Courses in psychology were given to three 

 classes of military physicians in training for 

 the work of flight surgeons. These courses 

 covered: fundamental presuppositions of the 

 science of psychology as defined by the more 

 prominent contemjKirary authors; the rudi- 

 ments of psychophysical methods and tech- 

 nique; an introduction to elementary statis- 

 tics, including measures of central tendencies, 

 variability and correlation; the psychological 

 features of the classification-tests used in the 

 Air Service; and an introduction to the con- 

 cept of the wish as a unit in behavior. While 

 most of these students made quite a credit- 

 able showing it has since been deemed ad- 

 visable to discontinue the work in statistics 



