RECORDS OF MEETINGS OF 1909 
305 
SECTION OF ANTHROPOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY. 
April 26, 1909. 
Section met in conjunction with the New York Branch of the American 
Psychological Association at 4 p. m. at the Psychological Laboratory of 
Columbia University and at 8:15 P. M. at the American Museum of Natural 
History, Prof. J. McK. Cattell presiding in the absence of Vice-President 
Fishberg. 
The following programme was offered: 
Afternoon Session. 
Sidney W. Ashe, The Reaction of the Pupil to Color. 
David E. Rice, Studies in Visual Acuity. 
J. Carleton Bell, Studies in Color Steroscopy. 
Evening Session. 
R. S. Woodworth, Hermann Ebbinghaus. 
Charles H. Judd, The Relation of Movement to Consciousness. 
Summary of Papers. 
Mr. Ashe presented the results of a study of the reaction of the pupil to 
color. A concave mirror was so adjusted that a person could read in it the 
diameter of his own pupil, into which was then thrown light of known wave- 
length and intensity. He found that for equal luminosities of light, as 
determined by the flicker photometer, the pupil assumes a different diameter 
according to the color, having the greatest width for red light, next for white, 
then for green and then for blue. The width assumed varies with the ex- 
centricity of the light stimulus, and the effects of the different colors change 
unequally in passage to peripheral vision, so that the difference in the size 
of the pupil, as between white and green lights of equal luminosity, becomes 
greater as the light becomes more excentrie. 
Mr. Rice reported on his studies in visual acuity, in which he has deter¬ 
mined the effects of differences of luminosity and of color on the legibility of 
standard letters. 
