A FIRST EXPERIMENT
2 9
hole or any part of the brass plate, an electric contact
was made which produced a click in a telephone receiver
which the subject held to her ear. At the start of the
test, the subject was instructed to put the brass pencil
into each hole in succession until she heard a click in her
ear, when she was to start all over again. The speed of
the subject’s movements was controlled by a metronome
set so as to allow thirty trials per minute. The experi
menter also had a telephone receiver to enable him to
follow the subject’s performance. The holes were num
bered 1, 2, 3, etc., to 9. As soon as the subject failed to
put the pointer squarely into a hole but touched the brass
plate and produced a click, the experimenter recorded
the number of the hole at which she had failed. This
constituted one trial. Each girl was allowed fifteen such
trials, and the numbers of the last ten were taken and
averaged, the first five serving as preliminary practice.
For instance, if a girl, in her first trial, reached the fourth
hole and missed on the fifth, the number five was recorded;
if she missed on the sixth, six was recorded, etc., until
fifteen numbers had been taken. Then, the sum of the
last ten trials divided by ten gave the average performance
for the subject. The larger the average, the better the
performance. This test occupied from two to three min
utes.
8. A modification of the Whipple steadiness test. This
consisted of two brass bars, about 12 inches long, set
so as to form a long, horizontal V. The subject was asked
to take the brass pointer and pass it along between these
two bars. The farther she went, the narrower became the
space between the brass bars. As soon as the brass pointer
touched one of the bars it produced a click in the tele
phone receiver. The point at which this brass pointer