Object Details
- Description
- Grace Helen Kent (1875-1973) spent the years from 1922 to 1926 as a psychologist at the Worcester State Hospital in Massachusetts. Kent had previously written on the use of geometric puzzles in psychology and also developed a word association test while working under A. J. Rosanoff at the Philadelphia Hospital for the Insane. In Worcester, she and psychologist David Shakow (1900-1981) sought to develop a version of the form board that would be suitable for clinical psychologists who needed to carry their equipment some distances to examine patients. They thought the form board suited to “immigrant, feeble-minded and psychotic subjects because of its self-explanatory nature” and also interesting enough to appeal to normal subjects.
- In 1925, Shakow and Kent published a description of the Worcester form board (see 316372.36 for a copy of the paper). It included six wooden boards. Two had nine depressions that each held one piece, two had five depressions that each held two pieces, and two had five depressions that each held three pieces.
- This object is a different form of the test. There is only one board that has six depressions in different shapes. These now hold eighteen pieces (three per depression). A cardboard box holds twelve pieces that also fit in the depressions, two per depression. Two drawings show the arrangement of the pieces. The one showing twelve pieces is labeled 2c, the one showing eighteen pieces 3c. It seems likely that this was an early form of the test as in later versions the pieces were painted to be color-coded.
- References:
- Kent, Grace H. “A Graded Series of Geometrical Puzzles,” Journal of Experimental Pshychology, 1, pp. 40-50.
- Kent, Grace H., & Shakow, D., “The Worcester Formboard Series,” Pedagogical Seminary and Journal of Genetic Psychology, 32, 1925, pp. 599-611.
- Shakow, David "Grace Helen Kent," Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 10, 1974, pp. 275–280.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
- date made
- ca 1925
- Credit Line
- Gift of David Shakow
- Physical Description
- wood (overall material)
- paper (overall material)
- Measurements
- overall: 1 cm x 26.5 cm x 20.5 cm; 13/32 in x 10 7/16 in x 8 1/16 in
- Object Name
- Psychological Test
