THE VISUAL CLIFF'S FORGOTTEN MENAGERIE: RATS, GOATS, BABIES, AND MYTH-MAKING IN THE HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY

Eleanor Gibson and Richard Walk's famous visual cliff experiment is one of psychology's classic studies, included in most introductory textbooks. Yet the famous version which centers on babies is actually a simplification, the result of disciplinary myth‐making. In fact the visual cliff�...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of the history of the behavioral sciences 2015-04, Vol.51 (2), p.113-140
Main Author: RODKEY, ELISSA N.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Animals, Newborn - psychology
Cats - psychology
Chickens
Comparative analysis
Depth Perception
Discrimination
Dogs - psychology
Experimental psychology
Experiments
Gibson
Gibson, Eleanor
Goats - psychology
Haplorhini - psychology
History of medicine and histology
History, 20th Century
Humans
Infant
Psychology
Psychology, Comparative - history
Psychology, Experimental - history
Rats - psychology
Sex discrimination
Sheep - psychology
Swine - psychology
Textbooks
Turtles
Uncertainty
United States
Walk
Walk, Richard
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Summary:Eleanor Gibson and Richard Walk's famous visual cliff experiment is one of psychology's classic studies, included in most introductory textbooks. Yet the famous version which centers on babies is actually a simplification, the result of disciplinary myth‐making. In fact the visual cliff's first subjects were rats, and a wide range of animals were tested on the cliff, including chicks, turtles, lambs, kid goats, pigs, kittens, dogs, and monkeys. The visual cliff experiment was more accurately a series of experiments, employing varying methods and a changing apparatus, modified to test different species. This paper focuses on the initial, nonhuman subjects of the visual cliff, resituating the study in its original experimental logic, connecting it to the history of comparative psychology, Gibson's interest in comparative psychology, as well as gender‐based discrimination. Recovering the visual cliff's forgotten menagerie helps to counter the romanticization of experimentation by focusing on the role of extrascientific factors, chance, complexity, and uncertainty in the experimental process.
ISSN:0022-5061
1520-6696
DOI:10.1002/jhbs.21712