That kind of thinking is what I suspected, Mike. Thanks for the personal confirmation.
My feeling is that this suggest a lack of understanding among many of the utility of history. It seems they were judging it as 'the facts must be old enough that not many folks alive today recall reading it in the journals.' History is so much more than just the factual occurrences. It gives us a sense of connections to previous eras, trends that die out and resurrect, etc. So, recent findings in an area can often be placed in an historical context (of that time, and of previous trend) that is not simply the material that justifies the study in the paper's introduction. Hence my initial post. I have since found two that overtly allow history to come to more recent times: Leahey (A History of Psychology: Main Currents in Psychological Thought) and Wertheimer (A Brief History of Psychology). Paul On Oct 22, 2013, at 8:45 AM, Mike Palij wrote: > True story. Sometime in 1978-1979 I submitted a paper for > presentation at the annual APA convention. It was a review > of the role of information theory in psychology from Shannon's > seminal 1948 papers which influenced many psychologists in > the early 1950s (the peak of this influence might be considered > to be George Miller's "Magic Number 7" paper which showed > how information theory could characterize some aspects of > attentional processing but could not be used as measure of > the capacity of immediate memory) to how Wiener's work > on control of systems (cybernetics) would influence late > 1950's/early 1960 thinking and research (perhaps the peak > being represented by Miller, Pribram, and Galanter's "Plans > and the Structure of Behavior"). I had learned about > information theory in the early 1970s in the context of my > participation in research that was using signal detection theory > in animal psychophysics. When I got to graduate school, for > a course on S&P I wrote a short history of how info theory affected > psychology topics such as psychophysics, perception, reaction time > (anyone remember Hick's Law?), memory, and so on. I used > this paper as the basis for the my submission to APA. > > It was rejected and one of the comments made by a reviewer > was "this is pretty recent history" -- a point that supports > Chris Green's comment below. ;-) > > I just had to wait until the 1990s to re-submit the paper to APA > for the presentation at its convention though in a somewhat modified > form (hey, I learned a lot more). This time it was accepted. > > Morale: Write up what you do today and wait. Eventually it > will become History. ;-) > > -Mike Palij > New York University > [email protected] > > On Mon, 21 Oct 2013 22:34:50 -0400, Christopher Green wrote: >> >> No Payl. It's the history of psychology that ends around 1960. After that, >>> it's called psychology. :-) > >>> On Oct 21, 2013, at 7:42 PM, Paul C Bernhardt <[email protected]> >>> wrote: >>> >>> I'm researching History of Psychology textbooks with intention to teach it >>> next semester. >>> >>> I've learned the most amazing thing: Apparently, the history of psychology >>> ends sometime about 1960! LOL! > > > --- > You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. > To unsubscribe click here: > http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13441.4e79e96ebb5671bdb50111f18f263003&n=T&l=tips&o=28980 > or send a blank email to > leave-28980-13441.4e79e96ebb5671bdb50111f18f263...@fsulist.frostburg.edu > --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=28981 or send a blank email to leave-28981-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
