The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1894-11-25
MEASURING THE SENSES.
INTERESTING EXPERIMENTS MADE
At TIE YALE LHBORATORp.
ouesr HesuI - Obtsined RsNsratns the sus-
feasibility or 1,tOO school Chihdrea-
why the Ivork Il Iunportsst.

0ueer Hcsui - Obtained Rsenrhtne the Sue.
eestibItty or 1,tOO school Chihdrea-
why the Nvork - Importsst.
New HAVEN, Nov. 2a.-Everybody knows how
! easily children In general take up a suggestion.
and what curious exceptions TO the rule there
arc. One little g ri will believe everything you
tell her without question, and will imagine she
secs or feels anything that the teacher suggests
to her. Another child will persistently doubt
the teachers word, will he a skeptic on all ques-
tons. and II lie grows up to be n philosopher
will probably doubt the evidence Of his own
sen1es. IL is 10 measure this difference Of sug-
gestitility thai Prof. f. w. Scripture of Yale
University has been conducting a series of in-
teresting experiments. Prof. Scripture gives the
following account OF the process:
"Here IS the way in which n can be donei
Through q thin wire I send an caectric current
lust strong enough to make this wire slightly
warm. / ask som one to put his finger on the
wire before I serd the current through. and.
taking ont my watch. I note the second at which
I send il through. He is to tell me when he feels
the slightest warmth. and I note how many sec
onts pass before he feels Il. Then I perform the
test twice again, and note the time as before.
Ihold the connecting cords in my hand, and the
current can pass only when the two points
touch. On the last two tests I do not let the
points touch, and so the wire does not In reality
become hot at all. and the sensation which the
DeTSOn nhu WIS Jibo Etculb Va h9 bhkkCsbOh tHhb
the wire was going to be hot. The time It takes
for chat suggestion TO work viii give some idea
Of the persons suggestibility.
Last year experiments were made on about
1400 children In the public schools OF New
Haven. They were done under the supervision
of DR.. J. A. Gilbert of the Yale laboratory, and
are reported in Studies from the Yale Psychic
logical Laboratory As experiments with the
thermo-sugRester cannot be performed rapidly
- = 20 - .,rn,atIo,, wvofrhNa xuaa A~wta@I
It consists Of a large block CD Of wood and .
small block tD filled with lead. Both of
these blocks arc exactly equal in weight.
When q person lifts first one and then
the other of these blocks between thumb
and finger It Is impossible 20 believe that
they are of equal weight. even II he knows the
fact. The eye suggests that tho big block must
be heavier. because all our lives we find big
things to be heavier than little ones. But whom
the hand raises them we are surprised not TO
find this tho case with the blocks. and the dis
crepancy at once suggests that the small block IL
heavier. It is q fact that after a years famil-
iarity with these blocks and after having many
times weighed them on the scales I cannot un-
deceive myself. Even to-day the small block
actually feels the heavier.
I'm the now Psychology we are not contented
till we can measure everything. The question
arises, How much heavier does d seem than D7
Db tlLb"pA v tAo " "a t1o vi
size on the feeling Of weight. To obtain the
measurement q set Of blocks. all of the same
size. are used. One of tho blocks Of this set is Of
the same weight as the blocks ID and d: tho
others are successfully lighter or heavier. Sup
pose this set of middle-sized blocks varied In
weight from Is ounces up to 80 ounces. and that
the blocks ID and d weighed SO ounces. Then
you first pick out the middle sized block that
seems to be equal in weight TO ID. say. for exam
pie, the o5-ounce block. Then you pick out the
have caught you. ID and d are exactly alike. yet
you make n difference of 40 ounces in weight
between them.
when tho experiments were made on the
children nothing was said but Pick out the
middlc-sized block that Is of the same weight a.
the large block: pick out the middle-sized block
OF the same weight as the small one.' The chill
dren did not suspect that ID and d were alike.
In this way We obtained an unbiased measure
ment of the influence of the size of q thing on
the child's Judgment Of Its weight.
communities except the United Statesj the
metric system OF weights Is used. Our blocks
were weighed In gTammes. An ounce is equal
to as Srrmmes The blocks p and q actually
blocks ranged from Is to 80 Rrammes. About
100 children Of each age from @ to II were
taken, The average effect of the suggestion was
as f8llS.s' : 2 years ysars' 4 q s srs%ms:' : years ysars' g g
years. 40 grammes; IS years, SO grammes;
i to Sr,m 1S year. Far 80 sra S1sa II ysssss
was above twenty-five grammes. Tho suggesti-
bility slowly increases from q years 70 o years:
after 0 years IL steadily decreases as the
rately calculated for boys and girls, show that at
all ages the girls are more susceptible to sugges-
tion than the boys, with the exception of the age
o, whore both were extremely susceptible.