May 1, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



657 



SPECIAL ABTICLES 



CARDS AS PSYCHOLOGICAL APPARATUS 



" Three thousand dollars a year for a good 

 instructor and one dollar for paper and pins " 

 are considered a sufficient equipment for a 

 fair elementary psychological laboratory by at 

 least two distinguished American psycholo- 

 gists. The present paper is a brief account of 

 some of the uses that may be made of paper 

 in one form only, playing-cards, picture post- 

 cards and library cards as found on the 

 'market. The uses described here relate to 

 former work, to work now being done and to 

 further possibilities. 



In general, cards commend themselves as 

 suitable experimental material on account of 

 their cheapness, accessibility, generality, more 

 or less familiarity and their standard nature 

 in shape, size, weight and quality. The stand- 

 ard nature of the playing cards needs no quali- 

 fication, and the variations of picture post- 

 cards in shape, form, design, etc., are easily 

 described and their pictorial features readily 

 reproduced when necessary. 



The frictionless or slipping quality of play- 

 ing cards commends them for work requiring 

 speed; they were first used in this connection 

 by Jastrow^ to determine the so-called dis- 

 crimination (distinction) and choice time. 

 And as a class demonstration of the time re- 

 lations of these two mental processes the cards 

 remain perhaps as simple and as cogent as 

 any material now in use. Seven years later 

 Professor Bergstrom^ used " unprinted cards 

 with the best slipping qualities " to study the 

 resistance or interference offered by an old 

 habit to the acquisition of a somewhat related 

 one. He took advantage of the diminishing 

 states of resistance to measure the rate of for- 

 getting a habit. And further study has shown 

 that an established habit may not simply 

 interfere, but that it may also favor the acqui- 

 sition of a new habit, i. e., an old habit may 

 blow both cold and hot, as it were, in its effect 

 upon a learning process, and thus a study of 

 the potency of one learning process upon 



1 Science, Vol. VIII., 1886. 



2 Amer, Jour. Psy., Vol. 5, 1893. 



another is made possible by the use of cards. 

 Coover and AngelP determined the effect that 

 skill in tossing colored cards into six small 

 compartments bearing colored labels has upon 

 the rate of manipulating the typewriter. In 

 such experimentation playing-cards have 

 proved exceptionally useful* for the reason 

 that the processes involved in their use are 

 susceptible of analysis to the unitary stage. 

 So that it becomes possible to make a quanti- 

 tative estimate of the units of transference 

 and interference. 



The study of the " Learning Process " be- 

 gun in this country by the original work of 

 Bryan and Harter^ on " learning telegraphic 

 language " inspired psychologists to draft the 

 instruments of both work and play into the 

 service of experimentation. The hand-ball 

 and short-hand,° the game of chess'' and the 

 typewriter^ have each in turn made notable 

 contributions to the learning process. But it 

 is evident that neither these instruments nor 

 their uses are adaptable to the laboratory as 

 class apparatus. Economy of time alone for- 

 bids. Hand-balls are inexpensive, but ball- 

 tossing as a learning process is narrow in its 

 range and the operation too fantastic for lab- 

 oratory purposes. There is need of simple ways 

 and means whereby individuals of large 

 classes may participate in the experimental 

 operations. Among the more successful 

 means now in use are nonsense syllables" and 

 the principle of reciprocal substitution of let- 

 ters, figures and conventional symbols devised 

 by Jastrow. We would add to the list the use 

 of playing-cards in connection with a distri- 

 hution-case. The case and its uses require a 

 brief description. 



We have found that a case 18 inches high, 

 36 inches long and 4 inches deep will furnish 

 space for 54 compartments, having six in the 

 vertical dimension and nine in the horizontal. 



3 Amer. Jour. Psy., Vol. 18, 1907. 



* Kline and Owens, Psych. Mev., Vol. 20, 1913. 



6 Psych. Bev., Vol. 4, 1897. 



e Swift, Amer. Jour. Psy., Vol. 14, 1903. 



7 Cleveland, Amer. Jour. Psy., Vol. 18, 1906. 



8 Book, Wm. F., Univ. of Mont. Studies, 1908. 



9 Ebbinghaus, "Ueber das Gedachtniss, " 1885. 



