The developing technology of apparatus in psychology's early laboratories.

This paper explores aspects of the role that laboratory instruments have played in establishing psychology as a science. Comparisons of earlier instruments with their more modern counterparts indicate that many problems and methods still of interest today were explored in the laboratories of psychology's pioneers. Such continuities are noted for apparatus employed in the study of reaction time, studies of auditory and visual processes, motor skills, and learning. Several examples are noted of instruments no longer in use, and a discussion is provided of ways in which instruments themselves may influence the outcome of experimental research.