Boynton David M, Smith Laurence D
Department of Psychology, Saint Michael's College, University of Maine, Orono 04469, USA.
Hist Psychol. 2006 May;9(2):113-43. doi: 10.1037/1093-4510.9.2.113.
The course in history of psychology can be challenging for students, many of whom enter it with little background in history and faced with unfamiliar names and concepts. The sheer volume of material can encourage passive memorization unless efforts are made to increase student involvement. As part of a trend toward experiential history, historians of science have begun to supplement their lectures with demonstrations of classic physics experiments as a way to bring the history of science to life. Here, the authors report on computer simulations of five landmark experiments from early experimental psychology in the areas of reaction time, span of attention, and apparent motion. The simulations are designed not only to permit hands-on replication of historically important results but also to reproduce the experimental procedures closely enough that students can gain a feel for the nature of early research and the psychological processes being studied.
心理学史课程对学生来说可能具有挑战性，他们中的许多人在进入这门课程时几乎没有历史背景，面临着陌生的名字和概念。除非努力提高学生的参与度，否则大量的材料可能会助长被动记忆。作为体验式历史趋势的一部分，科学史家已开始通过演示经典物理实验来补充他们的讲座，以此让科学史变得生动起来。在此，作者报告了早期实验心理学在反应时间、注意广度和似动领域五个具有里程碑意义的实验的计算机模拟。这些模拟不仅旨在允许亲自动手复制具有历史意义的结果，而且要足够精确地重现实验过程，以便学生能够感受早期研究的性质以及所研究的心理过程。
