1879

Francis Galton introduces the Word Association Experiment, which is subsequently introduced into Germany and popularized by Wilhelm Wundt, who used the Hipp chronoscope to measure reaction-time in his Leipzig laboratory (Akavia, 74-75). Kraepelin, who worked in Wundt’s laboratory in early 1880s, was first to use the WAE clinically (76); he believed that reaction times, as measured by the Hipp chronoscope, would reveal underlying psychological processes. His student Gustav Aschaffenburg began experiments with WAE that showed that psychopathological states, especially mania, were characterized by peculiar associative patterns, i.e., fatigued and manic subjects displayed prolonged reaction-times vis-à-vis normal subjects (81-82).