Michael M. Sokal

Laboratory instruments in the history of psychology

The importance of laboratory instruments as sources for the writing of the history of psychology is stressed, and illustrated through the use of examples where their study has been profitable. Most importantly, the role of the Hipp chronoscope in the reaction-time experiment is discussed, and the importance of various changes introduced into its design by James McKeen Cattell is shown. A photograph, first exhibited by the Department of Psychology of Clark University at the 1893 Worlds Columbian Exposition in Chicago is included, and further illustrates the importance of these instruments to historians.

Elizabeth Scarborough (1935-2015).

Presents an obituary for Pauline Elizabeth Scarborough, who died on August 18, 2015, at her home in Mishawaka, Indiana, after a long and well-fought battle with cancer. Scarborough was a historian of psychology, whose studies of late-19th- and early-20th-century women psychologists (often with her close friend, Laurel Furumoto) revolutionized our understanding of early American psychology.