arrangement of the experiment in placing the card in a group of six or
ten and exposing them for a few seconds only. The force of attention
and the corresponding memory-value are by this distribution diminished
in a definite degree in the case of every single card.
The investigation must include a careful study of the size of the
groups, of the time-relations, of the percentage of correct answers,
all under the point of view of greatest fitness for practical
application. In the Harvard laboratory the research has been carried
on partly with such picture material, partly with word material, and
partly with concrete objects.[54] Whatever the details of the outcome
may be, we hope that the work will lead to results which may, indeed,
make such a psychotechnical use possible. Its principles and formulæ
might easily be adjusted to any marketable material. As a matter of
course, if in future the courts were ever to accept such
psychological, experimental methods, it would be intolerable
dilettantism if such experiments were carried on by lawyers and
district attorneys. It is as true of this economic legal question as
of many other legal psychological problems that its introduction into
the courtroom can become desirable only when psychological experts are
engaged and called in the same way as chemical or medical experts are
invited to the court. On the other hand, there is surely not the
slightest desire on the part of psychologists to be dragged into
humiliating performances like those which not only handwriting
experts, but even psychiatric specialists have had to undergo
repeatedly in sensational court trials. The day for the expert
activity in the courtroom will came for the psychologist only when the
country has attached the expert to the court and has eliminated the
expert retained by the plaintiff or the defendant. But this general
practical question as to the position of the psychologist in the
courtroom and as to the need of a psychological laboratory in
connection with the courts would lead us too far aside.
XXIII
BUYING AND SELLING
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