During the war, the scientific resources of the University were to a large extent dedicated to military research for the government. Stevens' laboratory was commissioned to investigate the effect of noise on human working efficiency. The findings revealed, rather unexpectedly, that there is no marked drop in efficiency with a noise increase.
The laboratory was next contracted to study the problems of voice communications. It had to determine what are the qualities of a good "talker" and a good "listener" and what types of microphones, radio sending sets, and earphones produced the best results under all conditions.
When the Department of Social Relations was founded at the end of the war, the laboratory space for the behavioral sciences had to be drastically redistributed. The Psychological Laboratory gave up its space in Emerson and Boylston Halls and moved to the western end of the Memorial basement, displacing part of the Naval ROTC facilities. All Psychology Department experiments, if not all psychological experiments, were now centralized in one place.
Today, 80 years after their founding by James, the Psychological Laboratories continue their research into general experimental psychology under the directorship of Stevens, who took over in 1949 from the former director, Edwin G. Boring, professor of Psycology.
Though there is no official connection betweent the Laboratories and the Department of Psychology, almost all the members of the department carry on some experimental project in the laboratories. As Edwin B. Newman, Associate Director of the Psychological Laboratories and Chairman of the Psychology Department, puts it, "We are practically co-extensive."
The research carried on covers "the whole range of normal psychology of both human beings and animals," according to Newman. The experiments are devoted to studying both psycological behavior and the physiological characteristics that determine behavior and mental processes.
Philip Teitelbaum, assistant professor of Psychology, is currently attempting to determine the mechanism in the brain that causes the sensations of hunger and thirst. Since psychologists know what area of the brain controls these sensations, he has surgically removed various sections of this area in the brains of experimental rats.
This results in a radical modification of the eating habits of the animals. Some of the rats suddenly stop eating almost completely, wasting away into emaciated skeletons; others eat constantly and bloat themselves to twice their normal size.
Teitelbaum is trying to discover what part of the hunger process has been altered in each case and how the various sections of the brain coordinate to produce the sensation of hunger. He hopes to be able to use the knowledge gained from this study to explain other human sensations and appetites.
B. Fredrick Skinner, professor of Psychology, is developing in another project a "teaching machine" to help relieve the burden of elementary and secondary school teachers. His machine will probably be a device that will reveal printed questions to the student, provide a space for the student to record his answers, and then show the correct answer. The scoring will be done either automatically or by the student himself.
Such a machine could be used in any subject, such as languages, arithmetic, and elementary sciences, in which large amounts of factual material must be memorized.
Its great advantage would lie in the fact that it would enable each student to work at his own rate of speed. Able students, previously held back because teachers have to devote extra time to slower pupils, could, with one of Skinner's devices, progress independently of both the teacher and the rest of the class.
In the Psycho-Acoustic section of the Psychological Laboratories, Georg von Bekesy, research fellow in Psycho-physics, is carrying on a unique investigation of the mechanical physiology of the inner ear. His extremely delicate experiments include the measurement of the pressure changes and electrical effects within the interior structure of the ear.
These projects represent a scattered sampling of the wide range of research going on at present. Animals are used in almost all of these experiments, and about 90 per cent of the animals are rats and pigeons.
Both of these types of animals have been found to be unusually adaptable to changes in environment and both are reasonably fast learners. Pigeons are especially useful since their emotional responses can be easily and quickly measured by the frequency of their pecking.
Projects Farmed Out
Just as before the war, the main problem confronting the Psychological Laboratories today is one of decentralization. The facilities in the basement of Memorial Hall have graduall been outgrown, and various research projects have had to be farmed It also seems incongruous for the laboratories of the Psychology Department, of the Social Relations Department, and of the Psychological Clinic to be so completely separate. President Pusey's recent report to the Overseers mentioned that "no proper physical facilities have yet been provided for the Department of Social Relations," and Pusey has previously emphasized the need for a building for all the behavioral sciences. Certainly such a consolidation of the three laboratories in one building, if it comes, will not be easy. Each has become attached to its present quarters, and will be reluctant to move. But, according to Newman, "It would be on the whole a good thing, and perhaps it's inevitable. It would reassemble the scattered pieces of psychological work at the University." In its 80 years of existence, the Psychological Laboratory has experienced and endured continual relocation and change. President Pusey's Program for Harvard College may lead to the most far-reaching change of all sometime in the near future. It may not be an easy change, but it should be worth it.