SCIENCE.-SUPPLEMENT. 



FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1886. 



EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY IN 

 LEIPZIG. 

 The period in the development of a science at 

 ■w^hich observation is supplemented by experi- 

 mentation has long been recognized as one of 

 critical importance. Moreover, if the nature of 

 the science thus advanced seems to be such 

 that the employment of the new instrument is 

 followed by the positing of a more complete and 

 scientific stand -point ; if, in other words, the in- 

 fluence of the experimental stage is as valuable 

 for theory as for practice, — the importance of 

 this step is certainly increased. There are many 

 men now living who could have witnessed the 

 beginnings of this movement in psychology, and 

 lived its life with their own. Notwithstanding 

 the great enthusiasm with which this departure 

 was hailed, — an enthusiasm which in its short 

 career has experienced many ups and downs, — 

 the study has been taken up more largely as an 

 avocation than as a serious life-work. Many 

 scientists, mostly physicists or physiologists or 

 alienists (Helmholtz, Mach, Hennig, Preyer), have 

 taken up the limited portion of the subject in 

 which they were most interested, and devoted 

 themselves to it. The greatest advances of any 

 have undoubtedly resulted from the labors of such 

 men. On the other hand, the propounders of 

 psychological systems have not been slow in in- 

 corporating the results and conceptions of the 

 new movement into their doctrines, not always, 

 it may be added, with a very congruous result. But 

 there are many indications that an essential condi- 

 tion of the flourishing of scientific psychology is the 

 existence of specialists devoted to its cause, with 

 all the advantages, both material and intellectual, 

 that their position in a first-class university can 

 bring. Psychology is ready to emerge from the 

 nomadic state ; and^ having given assurance of 

 its permanency, it asks for a home, or rather for 

 homes. The University of Leipzig, owing to the 

 efforts of Professor Wundt, has been, perhaps, the 

 foremost in answering this call. Many young 

 men have gained an impetus for such work under 

 his direction ; and a quarterly Philosophische 

 studien, devoted mainly to the publication of re- 

 sults of research in the Leipzig laboratory, was 

 founded some years ago. The articles relating to 

 experimental topics in the last two numbers of 



this journal ^ will indicate the direction in which 

 work is being done. 



A very interesting study is that on the 

 ' Memory for tone,' by Mr. H. K. Wolfe. The 

 impetus to the research was given by the admir- 

 able study of the memory by Dr. Emminghaus, 

 in which he counted the number of repetitions of a 

 series of nonsense-syllables necessary to enable the 

 hearer to repeat the series from memory at once 

 or after a certain interval. He found, for ex- 

 ample, that he could repeat seven such syllables 

 when read to him but once ; if there were twelve 

 syllables, they would have to be repeated sixteen 

 times, and if twenty-four syllables forty-four 

 times before they were memorized. Mr. Wolfe 

 very justly remarks that what is here understood 

 by memory is the power to reproduce, and that 

 there is a more simple and retentive form of 

 memory, which consists in the power to recognize 

 as familiar an object that has been presented to 

 the senses before. A very common illustration of 

 this is seen in the fact, that, on reading a book a 

 second time, we recognize a great deal more of it 

 than we could have told of it. So, too, we can 

 recognize at least ten times as many shades of 

 color as we can see in the imagination, can under- 

 stand more words than are in our usual vocabu- 

 lary ; and so on, It is this simpler form of memory 

 that Mr. Wolfe studies. A series of nearly 300 

 vibrating metal tongues, giving the tones through 

 five octaves, from 32 to 1,024 vibrations, was at his 

 disposal. These tongues gave tones differing by 2 

 vibrations only in the two lower octaves, and by 4 

 vibrations in the three higher octaves. In the 

 first series of experiments a tone was selected, and, 

 after sounding it for one second, a second tone 

 was sounded, which was either the same as the 

 first, or different from it by 4, 8, or 12 vibrations 

 in different series. The person experimented upon 

 was to answer whether the second tone was the 

 same as the first, thus showing that he recognized 

 it, or whether it was different, and, if so, whether 

 it was higher or lower. Of course, the interval of 

 time between the two tones was an important 

 factor. The proportionate number of correct judg- 

 ments, and the smaUness of the difference of the 

 vibration-rates of the two tones, would measure 

 the accuracy of the tone memory. It appeared 

 that one could tell more readily whether the two 

 tones were alike than whether they were different, 



1 Philosophische studien. Herausgegebea VQa WXLgBI^ 

 Wundt. Band iii. hefte 3, 4. Leipzigi£)igelmwnn,iJB^.-^^, ft?. 



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