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doi: 10.1037/h0067728pmid: N/A
Reviews the book, Readings in general psychology by E. S. Robinson and F. Richardson-Robinson (1923). The very practical and pedagogical purpose for which the book was compiled is admirable. "Our elementary courses contain so many students that library assignments are in many cases all but impossible. In light of this fact, we feel that instructors will welcome a single volume which contains an ample and representative supply of reading materials." The book is divided into twenty-two chapters which range from introductory readings on the problems of psychology, through sections on the nervous system, typical forms of behavior, sensation, attention, perception, higher thought processes, feeling, emotion, and action, to concluding chapters on personality, individual differences, work, rest, and sleep. The authors have selected over 200 readings for the content of their book from over 100 different writers. The book is provided here and there with exercises for the students which consist generally of questions or topics for discussion. Well documented indexes of subjects and names come at the end of the work.
doi: 10.1037/h0067065pmid: N/A
Reviews the book, Mind as behavior by Edgar Arthur Singer. This book brings together a considerable number of papers which have appeared from time to time in the philosophical magazines. It is of special interest to the psychologist in calling attention to the fact that the author advanced a behavioristic conception of the science as early as 1911, that is, before the present American proponents of that view had explicitly declared themselves. "Consciousness," says Professor Singer, "is not something inferred from behavior; it is behavior" (p. 10). From which it follows that the study of mental phenomena means the study of behavior. Unfortunately for us, the discussion and defense of the author's position is directed toward the speculative thinker rather than the experimentalist. He naturally uses the language of the philosophers to combat their traditional conceptions of mind and soul. For the psychologist the book is likely to prove difficult reading and on that account the author's behavioristic views failed to receive due attention in the psychological world when they were first promulgated.
doi: 10.1037/h0067535pmid: N/A
Reviews the book, Medizinische psychologic für ärzte und psychologen by P. Schilder (1924). Apart from the fact that the author is a physician there appears no good reason why this book goes under the title of a "medical" psychology. It reminds one in this respect of Lotze's "Medical Psychology" published more than fifty years ago. The book is written in a very readable style, contrary to the reputation, often well deserved, of books written in the German language. And it is well printed. The contents give the reviewer the impression that the author for many years has made it his hobby to collect quotations of authors on psychology, psychoanalysis, brain anatomy and related fields, for the purpose of publishing an encyclopedic dictionary of psychology for the use of physicians; and that he then changed his mind, renounced the alphabetical arrangement, rearranged the collected matter logically and published it as a psychology book. It is systematic only in the sense of having all the collected matter logically arranged. It is not systematic in the sense of being pervaded by any, even approximately original, constructive idea of the author. Any one of the more typical pages tells us what five or six different people have "opined" (rather than what the author himself "concludes") about the matter which happens to be discussed on the page. There is a bibliography of 300 or 400 titles, the vast majority referring to German publications, very few to French ones and hardly any in any other language.
doi: 10.1037/h0064505pmid: N/A
Reviews the book, Nuovi orizzonti della psicologia sperimentale by Agostino Gemelli. This book, in second edition, revised and augmented, but undated, is dedicated to F. Kiesow "in spite of differences on particular questions." It consists of three main parts, in the reviewer's judgment. For 125 pages the author gives us one of the traditional histories of the "experimental psychology" of the nineteenth century, raising the curtain before such familiar names as Fechner, Lotze, Helmholtz and, of course and especially, Wundt. Many pages are devoted to discussing the proper place for psychology within philosophy and for philosophy within psychology. Very little good is expected by the author from the intrusion of biologists into the field of psychology. For 147 further pages we are then given a rather good report of the methods used by the "Würzburg school" for the investigation of the "thought processes." The last 81 pages the author devotes to an "examination of a notion fundamental for psychology," to the problem of the possibility of a science of conscious phenomena.
doi: 10.1037/h0069022pmid: N/A
Reviews the article, Ueber die stellung der psychologie im stammbaum der wissenschaften und die dimension ihrer grundbegriffe by H. Ahlenstiel (1923). This article is essentially a discussion of the proper definition of the science of psychology. The author adopts the same definition which the reviewer for several years has adopted in his own publications. The reviewer does not say this in order to suggest that the author has copied it from him, but in order to indicate that this is perhaps the reason why the reviewer thinks that this is perhaps the sanest discussion which anyone ever published on the definition of psychology. The author absolutely rejects all definitions of psychology as the science of "inner, spiritual" experience, for the good and sufficient reason that this is entirely contrary to the conversational usage of all the modern languages. In conversational language psychological or mental means nothing of the sort, but means those events of human life which are characterized by the plasticity which a human being's behavior shows in relation to and in the midst of other human beings. In short, what is meant is life in so far as it has a social significance.
doi: 10.1037/h0068266pmid: N/A
Reviews the book, Handbuch der vergleichenden psychologie, edited by Gustav Kafka (1922). This is quite a remarkable enterprise, well done by twelve different authors. This work is comprised of three volumes, all dealing with various topics in comparative psychology.
doi: 10.1037/h0068447pmid: N/A
Reviews the book, Education as the psychologist sees it by W. B. Pillsbury (1925). This is a general text written to interest "the teacher as well as the student" but it is presupposed that the teacher will have a fundamental knowledge of psychology. "It attempts to consider the problems of the teacher as they are presented to the psychologist." Hence "the book aims to indicate what we should expect the process of education to do for the child." This implies (1) a knowledge of the nature of the child before education; (2) a study of the psychological processes involved in working the changes required; and (3) "a summary of the methods that have been developed for the measurements of the progress that has been made in each of the school subjects." The book is written in a concise style, with an interesting presentation and practical suggestions which hold the reader's attention. Such an exposition could only have been made by one who is "a psychologist who has been some thirty years a teacher."
doi: 10.1037/h0068126pmid: N/A
Reviews the book, Statistical tables for students in education and psychology by Karl J. Holzinger (1925). "These tables have been prepared to assist students with the ordinary calculations in a first course in educational and psychological statistics. It is assumed that the chief topics in such a course will include averages, dispersion, correlation and uses of the normal curve..." This collection of tables, in a very convenient form, will be of great assistance to the research investigator in psychology and in education as well as to the student.
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