DOI: 10.6129/CJP.20171228
中華心理學刊 民106，59卷，4期，213-250
Chinese Journal of Psychology 2017, Vol.59, No.4, 213-250
Lothar Spillmann（Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University；Department of Neurology, University Hospital）；Tung-Han Lin（Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University）；Shojiro Sakurai（Department of Psychology, Kaohsiung Medical University）；Chien-Chung Chen（Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University）
Abstract
National Taiwan University, formerly Taihoku Teikoku Daigaku (or Taihoku Imperial University), has one of the largest collections of historical instruments in the field of sensory psychology. A total of one hundred-and-fifty instruments were acquired by Prof. Iinuma, founder and first professor of the Department of Psychology, from Germany between 1930 ~ 1932. Fifty-five instruments have survived. Here we describe 26 of the more important instruments by tracing them to the manufacturer’s manuals (e.g., the “Zimmermann lists”), early publications, the World Wide Web, and our own understanding of the mechanical principles that were used in making them. Instruments are grouped according to their use for measurement in the domains of vision, hearing, touch, time control, performance, and recording. The art of building equipment for experimental research in sensory psychology was well established in Germany during the years 1875 ~ 1914, when companies in Leipzig, Berlin, and Göttingen produced apparatuses not just for German laboratories, but also for laboratories in Czechoslowakia, Serbia, the Netherlands, and even in Japan and the United States. In time, some of these countries started producing their own instruments. For example, the Large Time Sense Apparatus at National Taiwan University (labeled D1 in this manuscript) was not imported from E. Zimmermann Co., but was built by Yamakoshi Seisakusho in Japan in 1945. The impact of these companies onto the history of psychology cannot be overestimated. Psychology was originally part of the Philosophy Department, but became independent thanks to the development of fine-mechanical instruments, which enabled accurate measurement and quantification of empirical results. This so-called “new” psychology became an experimental science akin to physics and physiology, when apparatuses typically made from steel and brass, became available for the objective investigation of the senses. The goal of studying those old instruments nowadays is threefold:
Received: 2017/03/21; First Revision: 2017/10/13; Second Revision: 2017/12/22; Accepted: 2017/12/28 Corresponding Author: Chien-Chung Chen (c3chen@ntu.edu.tw) No. 1, Sec. 4, Roosevelt Rd., Taipei 10617, Taiwan. Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University Acknowledgements: Prof. Keng-Chen Liang and Prof. Su-Ling Yeh inspired this article and actively helped during all stages of writing. Chieh-An Victoria Yang provided comprehensive documentation on the NTU instruments, contributed translations of the early history of psychology at NTU and also checked the references. Shih-Chun Hsu assisted with editing the figures. Profs. T. Oyama, H. Yoshimura, J.-T. Huang, G. Blowers, R. O. Shea, J. Gyoba, M. Sokal, and D. Todorovic read the manuscript or parts thereof and provided valuable historical information. Prof. G. Paramei kindly pointed us towards an old instrument collection in Tartu, Estonia. Profs. A. Stock and H. Gundlach kindly supplied archival records. Prof. L. Harris at York University, Dr. A. Meischner-Metge in Leipzig, and the librarians of the Freiburg Medical Library provided difficult-to-get literature. We thank them all. Author LS was supported by a visiting professorship from National Taiwan University and a private donation from an NTU alumnus. This paper is dedicated to Dr. Heinrich Pfeiffer, late Secretary General of the Alexander-von-Humboldt Foundation (Bonn, Germany), ardent advocate of international scientific collaboration.(1) to contribute to the history of scientific instrumentation; (2) to raise awareness in today’s students of how early researchers, after conceiving an idea for an experiment, often waited for a long time for an appropriate apparatus to be built; (3) to inspire students to think about the intimate relationship between scientific ideas, available apparatus, and experiments performed. The loss of workshops in today’s psychological institutes is deplorable, as computers cannot fully compensate for the flexibility of a fully equipped laboratory.
Keywords: historical instruments, sensory psychology, Taiwan, Germany
