page_title: George M. Stratton
section_title: The army
hierarchical_section_title: George M. Stratton / Work years / The army
caption_attribution_description: English: Army aviation airfield in use during World War I. Near Mineola, Long Island, New York.
context_page_description: George Malcolm Stratton was an American psychologist who pioneered the study of perception in vision by wearing special glasses which inverted images up and down and left and right. He studied under one of the founders of modern psychology, Wilhelm Wundt, and started one of the first experimental psychology labs in America, at the University of California, Berkeley. Stratton's studies on binocular vision inspired many later studies on the subject. He was one of the initial members of the philosophy department at Berkeley, and the first chair of its psychology department. He also worked on sociology, focusing on international relations and peace. Stratton presided over the American Psychological Association in 1908, and was a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He wrote a book on experimental psychology and its methods and scope; published articles on the studies at his labs on perception, and on reviews of studies in the field; served on several psychological committees during and after World War I; and served as advisor to doctoral students who would go on to head psychology departments.
context_section_description: During World War I, Stratton served in army aviation developing psychological recruitment tests for aviators. He worked at San Francisco, Rockwell Field, San Diego, and at Hazelhurst Field, Mineola, New York. Joining as a captain, he was promoted to major in 1918 along with a transfer to Mineola. Stratton presided over the Army Aviation Examining Board in San Francisco in 1917, chaired the subcommittee of the National Research Council of the APA: "Psychological Problems of Aviation, including Examination of Aviation Recruits" in the summer of 1917, and headed the psychological section of the Medical Research Lab of the Army Medical Research Board at Hazelhurst Field, a wing of the Army's Sanitary Corps,  in 1918. As a member of the psychological division, his research focused on developing psychological recruiting tests for would-be aviators. The tests he designed tested for reaction times, ability to imagine completions of curves presented visually, and the ability to sense a gradual tilting of one's own body. Edward L. Thorndike pooled Stratton's results with other studies to statistically analyze and correlate weak performance to a poor flying record. Part of this research was carried out in the spring of 1918 with Captain Henmon at Kelly Field, and the army thought enough of the results to allow the tests for checking recruits in four new units.
caption: Hazelhurst field
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