New-York tribune., 1906-12-09
WHERE WOMEN EXCEL.
TESTS At COLUMBIA.
lEeres About Equal in Logical Mem
ora, Say EGperts.

0dfnaro glrss are superior TO ColuFlDld tol-
tHge men in visual memory. rate Of perception
and In perception OF pitch. according TO tests
recently made by the department OF psychology
OF Columbia University. to determine the COM
parative mental abilities Of men and women and
20 test the gain that is made IN mental ability
by college student IN four years college resi-
denoe. The men. the other hand. su-
perior IN size OF head time of association. speed
OF movement, auditory memory and perception
Of size In regard 10 fatigue perception Of
weight and logical memory the two sexes proved
70 be about equal
These tests are made on al the entering
GLASSES ST Barnard and Columbia At the end Of
four years the same tests are repeated. 20 see
what the student has gained. There are
fwenty-one tests IN ALL intended to cover the
complete range OF mental ability, and they
Include measurements as to length and breadth
OF head. strength Of hands and ability 10
endure fatigue as well as tests of eyesight,
color vision, hearing. perception of pitch.
perception Of weight sensation areas sem
Eitiyeness TO pain. perception of Size color
preference reaction time. rate Of perception.
naming colors. rate Of movement. accuracy OF
movement, perception Of time. association. mag
ery. and memory. visual, auditory. logical and
retrospective. For many Of the tests. like the
fatigue and perception OF pain. simple appa-
continuous movement or Of continuous press
ure applied 10 the hand.
For the tests that are regarded as most i'm
portant in determining mental ability. however.
Hike tests as TO perception, memory and quick
ness of movement. apparatus OF any sort is
Necessary. To test the rate OF perception, one
hundred AS are scattered at random through
list Of five hundred letters. and the student is
asked to mark all the as as quickly as possible.
IN general, the women succeeded better in this
than the men, the average for them being about
81 seconds while most of the men took over 100
seconds. The percentage of errors, however. was
larger among the women than among the men.
Another test in perception was in naming 100
color squares, which represented nine different
colors and were Unfortunately mixed In
fhis the women succeeded much better than the
men, doing Il in nineteen seconds less time
To test the rate Of movement each student was
asked 10 place dot IN each of one hundred
squares, while to test accuracy. the same per-
con tried TO place pencil each Of the one
hundred dots as quickly possible. The time
OF the first movement was or an average of
twelve seconds longer for the women than for
The men In The accuracy test exact measure
inents for the women were not made but in gen.
sral the men were slightly superior.
There We're four memory tests To test the
t1NNtNoig memory Ten numbers were repeated 10
Che student in close succession and he was asked
10 recall them. Ten other numbers were shown
Che student IN succession and he recalled these.
TO test the logical memory q passage Of one hun
dreo words read and the student asked 10
give the thought that IL contained To test the
Tetrospective memory the student was asked
after lapse Of an hour to reproduce a line that
he had drawn. The men We're found to be much
better IN auditory than IN visual memory in
he l.Fs
Regarding the differences between freshmen
eno the same persons four years later II has been
3ound that the principal Improvement is in the
width OF the head, the perception Of pitch. esti-
NATION OF time, memory. and the marking OF AS
in the matter of sensation areas the freshmen
were found 10 be superior
The following table shows exactly the general
mental differences that were found between the
women: ~