EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY REVISED EDITION ROBERT S. WOODWORTH Columbia University Fee NOE Dees ere eog evi g iG Brown University .HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON New York — Chicago — San Francisco — TorontoCOPYRIGHT, 1938, 1954 BY HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON, ING. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS GATALOG GARD NUMBER: 5232-13912 0193 40 19181716 03-007440-1 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICAFrom the Preface to the First Edition ‘THE SMALL BEGINNINGS of this volume go back to 1910 or earlier, when I worked up the then available literature on practice and memory into a few chapters of readings for a college course in experimental psychology. This material was mimeographed and from year to year chapters were added on imagery, association, reaction time, space perception, judgment and thinking. In 1920 my colleague, Professor Poffenberger, collabo- rated in pulling together, rounding out and organizing this rather scat- tered material, and a mimeographed “Textbook of Experimental Psy- chology” was issued under our joint authorship for the use of our stu- dents, graduate and undergraduate. At about that time I determined to go ahead to full publication, but much work remained to be done. Dif- ficult questions of experimental method and of interpretation were at- tacked from time to time. Meanwhile the experimental literature was increasing by leaps and bounds, so that while I was making progress I was continually falling farther behind. In 19go I set to work with grim determination. Finally, early in the present year, when the accumulated manuscript had grown to a rather alarming bulk, my long-suffering pub- lishers granted me still a few months time for a final critical revision. R.S.W. Columbia University July 22, 1938Preface to the Revised Edition A booK oF THIS TYFE, concerned with an active field of research, should be revised at least once a decade, but the carly postwar years were scarcely ideal for such a task. ‘There had been a sharp drop in the number of published studies, since a very large share of the active experimentalists were engaged in some sort of military work while the rest of them were overloaded with teaching and administrative duties at the universities. Immediately after the war, however, the output of research publication started to rise very rapidly and it has been climbing steadily ever since. The time was ripe for a revision which was undertaken by the present authors in 1949. We hoped then to have the revision completed in two or three years, but we found that the amount of necessary new writing was much greater than we had anticipated, Just how different is this new edition from the old one? We believe that it is similar in style, viewpoint, and general level of difficulty. It is somewhat longer; although it has nearly the same number of pages, the new format gives about 20 percent more reading matter and cuts per page. The new bibliography lists 40 percent more titles than the old one—about 2,480 as against 1,770 in the old edition—and over 50 percent of the articles and books now cited were not used in the old edition. A distribution of these titles, decade by decade, shows how the coverage has shifted in favor of the newer work. In order to make room for the newer studies without unduly enlarging the book, we have pruned away much older material which is still of historical interest. In several chap- ters we have referred back to the first edition for fuller treatment of the early history of a problem. This older edition is available also in French translation. We have adopted what seems a more logical order of the chapters, though the order is relatively unimportant, for there are many cross- references in the text, and the chapters may be used in any order. We have broken up some of the old chapters, using their material in other connections. Most of the material on Feeling and on Experimental Esthetics has been dropped, since there seems to be little recent work in these fields. Emotion, on the contrary, has been treated extensively in a triad of chapters organized so as to bring some order into this chaotic field. A few new chapters have been worked out: one on the construc- tion of psychological scales, one on Discrimination Learning, and one on Motivation treated in connection with learning. The whole section on viPREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION Ot0 Ano New Ga. ioGRAPHIES, BY DATES 700 LEGEND Qo 600} 500) 400! 100 SAIS AAA 6g JM] gg IS SW SQA ° a XS X Y | Gg 7 y y Yj Y ) y ) Z ESS; learning has been reorganized, with more use of the abundant animal experiments which are aimed at fundamental problems. In two particular ways we have made the chapters more useful to the student. We have taken more care to make the experimental methods clear and practical in the laboratory. And we have made the chapters and subchapters more pointed by tying the data to pertinent theories. ‘As to a general pervasive theory or systematic viewpoint, we have tried to maintain an eclectic approach throughout the book. If our approach must be given a more systematic label, we suppose it should be called “functional,” with a definite preference for objective data but no taboo against material obtained through introspection if it helps the psychologist to understand what the organism is doing in relation to the environment. Similarly, we have used mathematical analysis where it appears helpful, but without regarding it as the key to every problem or to all genuinely scientific theory. Some knowledge of elementary statistics is presupposed throughout and especially in the chapters on Psychophysics where a definite effort has been made to integrate the traditional methods with modern statistical practices. Besides these improvements in the text there is a major change in the viiviii PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION bibliography which has been made more informative by the inclusion of the titles of books and articles, instead of the bare references. It has been set up so as to serve also as an author index. In the work of index- ing and bibliography we have had the expert collaboration of Mrs. Enrica Tunnell, the well-known Psychology Librarian at Columbia University. Without her aid in these and other phases of the revision, the book might well have been delayed another year or two! Our publishers generously permitted us to increase the number of cuts considerably. For the preparation of these drawings we are greatly indebted to Frank H. Lee, Professor of Graphics at Columbia University. Many associates and students have made contributions, either direct or indirect, to the preparation and revision of this book. We are especially grateful to colleagues who read chapters for which neither of the co- authors felt specially competent, but we hesitate to name these friendly people lest they be blamed for our shortcomings. We assume joint re- sponsibility for all the contents of this revised book, since whichever one of us prepared the first rough draft of a chapter, the other one exercised complete freedom in revising or rewriting it. Kach of us has had a hand in cyery chapter, For many of our illustrations we are indebted to the following book publishers: Appleton-Century-Crofts; Carnegie Institute of Washington; Clark University Press; Golumbia University Press; Farrar & Rinehart: Houghton Mifflin Company; Liveright Publishing Corporation; Long- mans, Green & Company; McGraw-Hill Book Company; Murray Hill Books; Ronald Press Company; W. B. Saunders; D. Van Nostrand Com- pany; John Wiley & Sons; Williams & Wilkins. We also are indebted to the following publishers of journals, proceed- ings and monographs: American Psychological Association; American Journal of Psychology; The Journal Press; National Academy of Sciences; American Philosophical Society; American Association for the Advance- ment of Science; National Society for the Study of Education; Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine; Acoustical Society of America; Optical Society of America; University of California; University of Chi- cago; Johns Hopkins Press; Johns Hopkins Hospital; Teachers College of Columbia University; Archives of Psychology; American Journal of Physi- ology; Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology; Année psycholo- gique; Psychologische Forschung; Zeitschrift fiir Psychologie. New York, N.Y. Providence, R.Is. March 1, 1954CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE 1 Introduction ’ 1 Experimental variables 3 Qualitative and quantitative experiments 6 2 Reaction time 8 Historical sketch 10 Apparatus nM Dependence on the stimulus . 16 Dependence on the organism . 27 Correlations and uses 39 3 Association 43 Historical background . 43 Methods 46 Commonness of response words 50 Classification 52 Associative reaction time 56 Detective and diagnostic uses 66 4 Attention - 42 Determiners of attention . . 74 Shifts and fluctuations 76 Distraction : 84 Doing two things at once 87 Span of attention or of appre- hension go 5 Emotion I: Expressive move- ments . 107 Activation theory 108 Facial expression nt Vocal expression . 121 Primary dimensions of facial expression 124 CHAPTER, Fractionation methods PAGE Heredity and learning of ex- pression . 128 6 Emotion II: Energetics : 133 The activation mechanisms. 133 Electrical skin conductance. 197 Psychological determiners of skin conductance 144 Significance for psychology 158 Emotion II: Other bodily changes - 160 Circulation». 6 ee 160 Respiration 168 Muscular tension is Other changes and indices 179 Patterns of activation » 181 Lie detection 185 Psychophysics 1; The determi- nation of thresholds 198 The Method of Limits 196 The Method of Average Error 199 Frequency methods 200 ‘The nature of thresholds - 219 Thresholds and Weber's Law . 221 Constant errors and series ef- fects + 225 Psychophysics II: Scaling methods 234 Scales based on liminal differ- ences 235 238x CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE The Method of Equal Sense Distances 246 Paired Comparison . 852 The Ranking Method 57 The use of reaction time for scaling 261 10 The cutaneous senses. . 267 Sensory nerye conduction 268 Delimitation of the cutaneous senses 275 Adaptation of the ckin senses 286 Gutancous perception. , 11. The chemical senses 4. . 297 Taste sees 298 Smell . ee ood Olfactory thresholds. BIZ Odor stimuli gis 12 Audition. . : 923 The cochlea and auditory nerve 325 Auditory theories 327 The dimensions of hearing 330 Combinations of simple tones 338 Aural inadequacies . . 342 Deafness ae Auditory space perception - 349 13 Vision : . 362 The visual stimulus . . 962 Rod and cone vision . 365 Light and dark adaptation | 367 Temporal and spatial factors . 373 Brightness - 378 Visual acuity... . 382 Color vision . 387 Binocular vision . 397 14 The perception of form . . 403 Figure and ground . «403 Perceptual units « 408 Contour ae Masking of figures 413 CHAPTER 16 7 18 Proportion as a characteristic of shape ‘The geometrical illusions Figural aftereffects Perception of color. Problems in color perception Normal conditions of illumina- tion Deceptive indications of illu. mination Field factors. 1. 4 Adaptation Contrasts ee Visual depth perception Possible cues of depth The stereoscope and stereos scopic vision Accuracy of depth perception Accommodation and conver- gence ‘The relationship between size and distance Perception of objects Eye movements in relation to perception Methods of observing and re- cording eye movements Fixation and associated eye movements . Eye movements in reading Pursuit movements and the perception of motion Compensatory eye movements Orientation in space Learning: Introductory survey General scheme of an experi- ment in learning Purpose and design of learning experiments PAGE 416 + 417 + 423 » 428 498 433 - AAL 1 444 AAT + 449 455 492 - 493 + 497 + 504 510 B17 + 523 70 & 5 530 539CHAPTER PAGE 19 Conditioning . BAL Pavlov's conditional reflex 541 The nature of reinforcement . 545 The problem of extinction 557 Time relations 565 Attitudinal and “volitional” factors 572 Generalization and discrimina- tion 576 20. Discrimination learning 582 Discrimination without direct comparison 585 What are the effective cues in successful discrimination? . 589 “VTE—yvicarious trial and error” 599 The “delayed reaction” Go4 Cue learning by human sub- jects 608 21 Maze learning 614 Sensory cues in maze learning 615 The maze pattern as a factor in learning 618 Some matters of technique . 624 What is learned in the maze? . 626 How the maze is learned 635 Human maze learning 646 22 Motivation in learning and performance 655 Factors in performance 655 Drive and incentive 657 Negative drives and incentives 668 Secondary incentives 679 Nonorganic primary drives and incentives 683 Human drives and incentives 685 23 Memory 695 Experimental methods for the study of memory : 695, CONTENTS CHAPTER Materials used in memory ex- periments : Memorizing : The memorizing process. Recall ee Recognition Retention : Factors affecting the speed of forgetting 24 Transfer and interference Design of transfer experiments Cross education Memory training ‘Training in observation Transfer in maze learning Transfer in terms of stimulus and response Retroaction Theories of retention (or of forgetting) Economy in learning and per- formance Recitation as an aid in learning Whole versus part learning Massed versus spaced (or “dis tributed”) learning Reminiscence Work and fatigue Efficient acquisition of a skill 26 Problem solving: thinking Process-tracing experiments Problem solution as related to transfer Set as a factor in problem solv- ing Reasoning as the utilization of information Bibliographical Index of Authors Subject Index PAG) xi Jor 703 707 718 722 Ta 728 733 735 738 743 - 746 748 779 779 786, 794INTRODUCTION Why an “experimental” psychology? When it first began to make its appear- ance about a hundred years ago, experi- mental psychology came as a challenge to the older mental philosophy which was indeed aspiring to become a natural science with practical applications to hu- man living but which was in great need of facts—many facts, well-attested facts, and facts relevant to its theories and hoped-for applications. The experimen- tal method had shown itself to be ex- taordinarily fruitful in several other branches of science as a means of obtain- ing the important facts, and a few for- ward-looking scientists of that time felt that this method should be given a trial in psychology. But these innovators were themselves exposed to a serious challenge. Could they contribute anything of real importance, or was their experimental psychology doomed to be and remain a very small affair? A few scattered experi- ments of a psychological nature had been made by physicists and astronomers, and the physiologists in their study of the sense organs had amassed much factual material of at least marginal psychologi- cal interest. But the mind of man, so it seemed to many philosophers and to many physical scientists, would be for- ever inaccessible to experimental con- trols. As regards the scope of experimental psychology, a few decades of intensive work by able pioneers showed that it was by no means narrow. Memory, training, conditioning were attacked, and the whole field of human and animal learning was found to be accessible by experimen- tal methods. Thinking, invention, and problem solution yielded important re- sults. Something could be done with emotion, motivation, and even willing. Almost any form of human activity could be surveyed in a preliminary way with good prospects of finding an opportunity for some incisive experiments. Today we are inclined to claim for experimental psychology a scope as wide as that of psy- chology itself, while admitting that we do not yet know exactly how to subject some of the biggest problems to a rigorous experiment. The present-day challenge to the experimentalist comes from within the active group of clinical, counseling, educational, and industrial psychologists, especially from those who are concerned with the problems of personality develop- ment and maladjustment. Can it be shown that the experimental method is applicable in these important fields and that psychologists trained in the labora- tory will be the leaders there, especially in the research necessary for further prog- ress? The outlook is certainly hopeful, and this book would be expanded beyond. measure if it tried to cover all the experi-ta Ch.1 INTRODUCTION mental work that is being undertaken in these fields. For a similar reason this book must leave aside the study of individual differ- ences by test methods, inaugurated by ex- perimentalists at about the turn of the century, with its modern statistical magic for correlation, analysis of variance, and factor analysis. ‘The experimentalist needs some degree of competence in these methods, if only for checking on the re liability of his own results. The same psychologists, from the early days on. have contributed to both lines of study, and the contacts between them are close and should remain so. But the same book can scarcely do justice to both lines of attack. The oxperimenter’s requirements. An experimenter trics to control tke condi tions under which an event occurs. If he succceds in doing so, he has certain ad- vantages over an observer who simply watches the course of events without ex- ercising any control. 1, The experimenter can make the event occur when he wishes. So he can be fully prepared for accurate observa- tion. 2. He can repeat his observation under the same conditions for verification; and he can describe his conditions and enable other experimenters to duplicate them and make an independent check on his results. 3- He can wary the conditions system- atically and note the variation in results. If he follows the old standard “rule of one variable,” he holds all the conditions con- stant except for one factor which he makes his “experimental variable” and regards as responsible for the observed variation in his results. As to this rule of one variable, it does not forbid the simultaneous variation of two or even more factors, provided the ex- periment is so designed that the experi- menter can tease out of the data the effect of each single variable, as well as their possible interaction (Fisher, 1949). Ex- perimental designs permitting the con- trolled variation of two or more factors are being found very useful by psycholo- gists. For some relatively simple exam- ples see Underwood's book (1949, pp- 144-148, $23-337)- Some terms and symbols. In a psycho- logical experiment one obvious require- ment is an organism to serve as subject by responding to stimuli. If we desig- nate the stimulus (or stimulus complex, or stimulating situation) by the letter S, and the subject’s response by the letter R, we can best designate the subject or or- ganism by the letter 0. We shall use the italicized letter O in this way.7 The letter E stands for the experimenter. A psychological experiment, then, can be symbolized by S—O—R, which means that E (understood) applics a certain stimulus (or situation) to O's receptors and observes 0’s response, This formula suggests a class of experiments in which E's aim is to discover what goes on in the organism between the stimulus and 1 More common today is the use of the letter § to stand for the subject. In this book, since S will be often used for the stimulus, we shall find it less confusing to use O for the subject. This O basa long history. It was originally read “ob- server,” because the early experiments were largely in the field of sensation and perception where the subject's task was to observe the stimu- lus and report what he saw, heard, etc, But the same word and symbol were carried over to re- action time experiments which called for a motor response and not for observation on the subject's part. Such was Titchener's usage in his very in- fluential Experimental psychology (1901, 1905) Because of his strong emphasis on introspection, however, the word “observer” and the symbol O came to suggest introspective experiments and to seem inappropriate elsewhere. At the present time the word “subject” is almost universal; but is a better symbol.EXPERIMENTAL VARIABLES 3 the motor response. A good example is Pavlov’s observation of the inhibitory state in a dog between the conditioned stimulus and the delayed conditioned re- sponse. Physiological recording instru- ments often reveal something of what is going on in the organism during emotion, and introspection can show something of the process of problem solution. In another class of experiments, more common and perhaps more successful on the whole, E does not attempt to ob- serve directly what goes on in O, but hopes to find out indirectly by varying the conditions and noting the resulting varia- tion in response. Let us ask what kinds of conditions E is able to vary and make his experimental variables. Since O cer- tainly responds differently to different stimuli, there must be stimulus variables, S-factors, affecting the response. Just as certainly, the subject responds differently to the same identical stimulus according to his own state and intentions at the mo- ment. There are O variables, O-factors, affecting the response. At a certain mo- ment the organism makes a response. ‘The response depends on the stimuli act- ing at that moment and on factors pres- ent in the organism at that moment. This general statement can be put into the form of an equation, R={(S, 0) which reads that the response is a func- tion of S-factors and O-factors. Or, it can read that R-variables depend on S-variables and O-variables. In any par- ticular experiment some particular $-fac- tor or O-factor is selected as the experi- mental variable, and some particular R-variable is observed. As to the control of these variables, we readily admit that stimuli can be con- trolled so far as they come from the environment, for E can manage the im- mediate environment consisting of the experimental room and the apparatus. But how can he control the O-variables? At first thought it seems impossible. Yet consider the example of hunger, a much- used variable in animal experiments. It can be controlled by regulating the feed- ing schedule. What E directly controls is “hours since last feeding” prior to the actual test or “trial” when a stimulus is applied and the response observed. Time since feeding is thus an antecedent variable, an A-variable, and the experi- menter may find it more helpful and “op- erational” to speak of A- rather than O-variables, and to give our equation this modified form: R={(S, A) Of course the A-variables have no effect on the response except as they affect O's state during the test. The O-variables are the real factors in the response, However, they may be hypothetical, based on some hypothesis as to what goes on in the organism, and the A-variables are used to test the hypothesis. For exam. ple, expectancy or anticipation of what is coming might be a factor in the re- sponse to a given stimulus. To test this hypothesis, E figures out some way of building up in O expectancy strong or weak, correct or false; he devises an A-vari- able to manipulate the supposed O-factor of expectancy. A preliminary survey of the variables utilized in psychological experimentation will serve to bring out some points of gen- eral interest. Stimulus variables. Elementary stimuli differ in “modality,” being visual, audi- tory, olfactory, etc., according to the sense which they stimulate. In every modality, stimuli vary in intensity and duration. Stimuli of light and sound vary also in the dimension of wavelength or fre- quency, corresponding to color and pitch.4 Ch.1 INTRODUCTION Odor stimuli differ chemically one from another, and so do taste stimuli. Area or extent is a variable in the cases of light and skin stimuli. Already we glimpse arich field of S-variables inviting explora- tion by psychologists interested in sen- sation, perception, esthetics, and reaction time. ‘This field was in fact one of the earliest to be partially explored by the experimentalist. Not only elementary stimuli but also stimulus combinations or complexes are covered by the $ in our formula. Spatial perception of the distance, direction, size, and shape of an object depends on the subject’s ability to utilize a combination of stimuli; therefore, the investigator of this important ability must be expert in manipulating such combinations of stim- ul. In experiments on learning and prob- lem solving no complete record is usually made of the actual stimuli received by the subject’s receptors. What you find instead is a statement of the objective situation confronting the subject—a maze, for example, of specified form and size and under specified illumination. The stimuli received by an animal wra- versing the maze could scarcely be speci- fied since they change from moment to momentas the animal moves. Objects, not stimuli, are recorded in this case. Simi- larly, little attempt is made to describe the animal’s motor responses or muscu- lar contractions. Instead, you find a re- port of the external result of the animal's movements, such as entering a certain blind alley or passing it by. It is cus- tomary to report external objects and re- sults in such experiments, rather than the actual stimuli and responses; and no harm is done if we recognize that two of the main problems of psychology are being by-passed, the problem of how ex- ternal objects are perceived and the prob- Jem of how muscular activity is directed toward external results. O-variables and A-variables. A val- uable analysis of what we are calling O-factors was offered by Clark Hull (1943. 1951). His ambitious project called for the identification of all these factors, the quantification of each factor by experi- ments with an appropriate A-factor, and the discovery of how the several factors combine into the momentary readiness for a particular response. Some of Hull’s O-factors are the following: 1. Habit strength, the strength of asso- ciation between a certain $ and a certain R, based on previous learning which is an Avariable or combination of A-vari- ables, Hull uses the symbol, ,Hy, for habit strength. 2. Drive, such as hunger, already dis- cussed. g- Incentive, the reward or punish- ment expected, 4- Inhibition, a factor or combination of factors tending to diminish the mo- mentary readiness for a response. Ob- vious examples, not specially emphasized by Hull, are fatigue, satiation, distrac tion, fear, and caution. 5. Oscillation, an uncontrollable varia- tion in O's readiness to act, dependent probably on a multitude of small internal causes, but not beyond measurement and prediction since an individual usually varies only within limits. 6. Individual differences and differ- ences due to age, health and organic state. We may add the O-factor of goal-set, akin to drive but worthy of separate con- sideration, In a typical human experi- ment E gives O certain “instructions,” as- signing the task to be performed; and one stroke of uck that has helped along theEXPERIMENTAL VARIABLES 5 advance of experimental psychology from the very beginning is the human subject’s willingness to cooperate by following in- structions and performing the task quite eagerly. Verbal instructions are not nec- essary when, as in animal experiments, the situation is so arranged as to guaran- tee that a certain goal will be striven for by the subject. Response variables. As already men- tioned, experimenters do not usually at- tempt to describe the actual muscular re- sponse; they content themselves with noting the result achieved, which can vary in several ways: 1. Accuracy, as shown for example by a count of hits and misses on a target. In many experiments on perception O's task is to observe and report the stimulus as accurately as possible, and his errors are measured or counted. Any measure of accuracy is almost inevitably a meas- ure of errors. 2, Speed or quickness, illustrated by the reaction time of a single response or by the total time consumed in a complex performance. When the task is com- posed of many similar units, such as col- umns of numbers to be added, the test is conducted according to either of two plans: Time limit: How much is done in the same time allowed? Amount limit: How long does it take to do the assigned amount? These are both speed tests, speed being equal to the ground covered divided by the time taken to cover the ground. 3. Difficulty level, a type of measure- ment often adopted in intelligence test- ing so as to avoid overemphasis on speed. It can be used as a response measure when the experimenter is provided with a scale of tasks graded in difficulty. The ques- tion then is: How far up the scale can the subject succeed? In athletics we have the clear example of the pole vault. The bar is raised until the athlete fails, and a measure of his performance is thus ob- tained. The same logic is employed in the Binet intelligence tests which consist of test items of graded difficulty, and we shall meet other examples in the experi- ments on memory span and span of atten- tion. Often the difficulty scale for meas- uring a particular kind of performance has to be constructed by a laborious proc- ess of preliminary experimentation. 4. Probability or frequency, when a particular response occurs sometimes but not onevery trial, A stimulus just at the “threshold” will be noticed about 50 per: cent of the time. A partially learned re- sponse will perhaps be made in 6 out of 10 trials, so that its probability is 6o percent at that stage of learning. If there are two or more competing responses to the same stimulus or situation, the proba- bility of cach competitor can be deter- mined in a series of trials. 5» Strength or energy of response, some- times a useful R-variable, though the re- lation of muscular output to excellence of performance is far from simple, We cannot say that the stronger the muscular response, the better, for often intelligent training gets rid of a lot of superfluous muscular cffort. The less energy con- sumed in attaining a certain result, the greater the efficiency. The student of learning is concerned with the “strength” of an S—R connection, sHp, which is yery different from muscular strength. Holding a factor constant. A large share of the experimenter’s preliminary plan- ning and labor is directed toward avoid- ing irrelevant causes of variability. He plans to hold all factors constant except those he wishes to investigate. If his6 Ch.1 INTRODUCTION interest lies in a stimulus variable, he must neutralize such O-variables as drive and habit strength. Suppose, in an ex- periment on dart throwing, E wishes to find out how the score changes with in- creased distance of the target. This ex- periment is going to extend through many trials so as to obtain a reliable average score for each distance. If he starts an inexperienced O at the shortest distance and increases the distance step by step, O is becoming more and more skillful and will do better at the greater distances than he could have done at first. This prac. tice effect threatens to spoil the experi- ment by obscuring the effect of distance. There are several ways of avoiding this source of error: (1) give the subject ample practice before testing the effect of dis- tance; (2) repeat the distances in balanced order so that in the end the practice ef- fect is equalized; (5) use separate groups of subjects, matched groups, for the dif- ferent distances. Matched groups may seem by all odds the best method, but the matching is never perfect (unless we have identical twins at our disposal), and there are advantages in comparing the same individuals in the different experimental conditions. When, as in many cases, there are just two conditions to be compared, A and B, the balanced order is known as the “ABBA order.” In the above example we held the amount of practice constant, but in learn- ing experiments this is one of the most important A-variables to vary. In that case we would keep stimulus and task variables constant; we would probably use the same target and the same throw- ing distance throughout the learning period. The progressive increase in ac- curacy as a function of practice would give us a learning curve. This curve might be plotted from average scores for each day of practice, or it might be based on tests, interpolated every so often dur- ing training. ‘The experimenter would like, of course, to reach a conclusion of some generality, but often he feels in duty bound to con- fess that he is not sure of it except under the specific conditions of his experiment. He would like to “extrapolate” from the laboratory setup to the conditions of daily life, but he is not sure that his Os are a fair sample of the population in respect to the function he has been testing—some form of learning, it may be, or of percep- tion, or of motivation—nor is he sure that the particular task he has used is a fair sample of the function, He does right to qualify his conclusion, but in the long run the fraternity of experimental psychologists must accept the responsibil ity of showing how much generality their findings can claim. Brunswik (1947) has made this point convincingly. Qualitative and quantitative experi- ments. All the emphasis that we have been placing on “variables” may leave the impression that every worth-while experi- ment must be quantitative in nature. There are important variables which are qualitative rather than quantitative. One obvious qualitative difference is that of “modality.” The role of the different senses in revealing the environment is an important psychological problem. Ante- cedent training can differ in kind as well as in amount: training with “reinforce- ment” differs in its effects from training without reinforcement; training with “understanding” differs from routine drill. Responses, too, differ in kind as well as in amount: an animal will ap- proach one object and avoid another; a human subject will report that he likes one odor and dislikes another. The general tendency of experimental-QUALITATIVE EXPERIMENTS 7 ists today is to give all the preference to quantitative work and therefore to choose lines of work that lend themselves to quantification. Some psychologists dep- recate this tendency as premature in a relatively young science like psychology; they feel that it puts blinders on the re- search worker and conceals from him many fundamental scientific problems. How could chemistry ever have become quantitative without first being interested in the various kinds of elements and com- pounds? A qualitative survey is often necessary to show up the important prob- lems and suggest hypotheses for more ex- act testing.REACTION TIME One of the most available response vari ables for experimental psychology is speed. The reason is obvious: every act takes time, and time can be measured. We can measure the time occupied in doing a certain amount of work, or we can set a time limit and measure the amount of work done in the given time, In either case we measure the speed of work. Speed is a useful measure in two ways: as an index of achievement, for the more completely you have mastered a task the more rapidly you can perform it; and also as an index of the complexity of the inner process by which a result is accomplished, for the more complicated the process, the longer time it will take. For such reasons as these the timing of re- sponses plays an important role in psy- chological experimentation. Reaction Time is about the simplest case of tim- ing. Reaction time is not exactly what might be supposed from the term. It is not the time occupied by the execution of a re- sponse. It is the time required to get the overt response started. The reaction time is the S—R time interval. The re- sponse cannot come out of the organism quite as soon as the stimulus goes in. The stimulus starts a process going, but the process remains hidden or “latent” inside the organism till it reaches the muscles and produces an observable effect on the environment. The sense organ must be aroused to activity, the nerves must conduct to the brain and from the brain to the muscles, and the muscles must contract and move some external ob- ject. All these steps in the process take some time, but the most time is consumed in the brain, Work must be done in the brain. Even in the simplest possible re- action the nerve impulses coming in from the sense organ have to accumulate and build up enough excitation to arouse the motor areas of the brain and set up a discharge toward the muscles. And when the response has to be nicely adjusted to the stimulus, work is done and time is consumed in registering the exact charac- ter of the stimulus and organizing the motor response. The reaction time, also called the response latency, includes sense organ time, brain time, nerve time, and muscle time. It is subject to several causes of variation and is distinctly a re- sponse variable. The reaction time experiment. A person’s reaction time (RT) to light is to be measured. He is seated at a table in a dimly lighted room and sees before him a screen with a hole in it through which a light can be flashed. He is shown this light so that he knows the stimulus to be used. On the table is an electric switch or key. His instructions are toREACTION TIME EXPERIMENT 9 place his finger on the key when he gets a “Ready” signal and to press the key in- stantly when the light flashes. Behind the scenes, in the experimenter’s bailiwick, there is some accurate apparatus which measures the S—R interval. The RT on the first trial may be half a second, but it diminishes within a few trials to the re- gion of 1/5 to 1/4 sec, i. €., to 200-250 ms (where 1 ms—=1 millisecond = 1/1000 second). Further practice does not decrease the RT much below 200 ms when the stimulus is a light; when it is a sound or touch, the RT is about 150 ms after some practice, and as little as 100-120 ms in some individuals after much practice. This seems to be the minimum latency for any voluntary or Iearned motor response, though some true reflexes, especially the knee jerk and the eye wink, are much quicker, with a latency of about 4o ms. The experiment just described deals with the “simple reaction,” which is “sim- ple” in presenting a uniform stimulus and requiring a uniform response. There are no alternatives to complicate O's task. He knows in advance what S$ will come and what R he will make. In another type of RT experiment there are alternatives. There are different stim- uli calling for different responses. The stimulus light may vary from red to green in irregular order; there are two response keys, one for each hand; and the instruc- tions are to react to red with the right hand, but to green with the left hand. This “disjunctive” or “choice” reaction has a longer latency than the simple reac- tion, the disjunctive RT measuring about 100 ms longer than the simple RT. The associative reaction, to be considered in the next chapter, is still slower, and the RT can be prolonged indefinitely by further complications of the subject's task. Procedure. The RT must be measured with considerable accuracy in order to serve as a response variable in a quantita- tive experiment. Besides the apparatus requirements soon to be considered, there are two problems of procedure which may cause trouble, as they have often done in the past history of RT work. 1, Premature reactions and other false reactions must be avoided. Since O is eager to respond as quickly as possible, his hand may “get away from him” once in a while and make a “response” before the stimulus! He is especially prone to do so when the stimulus follows the Ready signal at a perfectly uniform interval; accordingly, it is standard practice to vary this interval slightly from trial to trial. It might seem that a few premature reac- tions would do no great harm—merely a few wasted trials—but when there are ob- vious premature reactions, other suspi- ciously quick reactions are probably pre- mature too. It is impossible to weed out the false reactions, and the only safe course is to discard such data altogether. To guard against premature reactions can introduce “catch tests.” Suppose his procedure is to give a scrics of 20 trials and then allow a brief rest. In each series of go stimuli he inserts one or two blanks, giving the Ready signal without any stimulus following. If O is caught, he is informed that the whole series of 20 trials has to be thrown out as valueless. So he learns to keep his eagerness within bounds. Special catch tests are not needed with the disjunctive reaction, for if O becomes too eager, he will sometimes respond with the wrong hand, or even with both hands, making it necessary for E to warn him and discard the series. 2. There must be as many alternative responses as there are alternative stimuli to be distinguished, and each response must be assigned to its particular stimu-