The purpose of this experiment l was to determine whether the perception of color or the perception of form plays a major part in the total apprehension of an object by individuals of a given age and whether this relative potency tends to change with age. The method employed was a modification of that used in a similar study carried out by Descoudres 2 and published in 1914. It involves the setting up of an experimental situation in which the subjects are required to choose between two alternatives in matching a series of objects. When the objects chosen were similar in form, they were invariably dissimilar in color; when color was the same, form could not be matched. Each situation offered equal opportunity for matching upon the basis of either form or color, but a choice always had to be made. Material. In the present study, three sets of material were used. The first set, which was used only with children below the age of six years, consisted of a series of solid geometrical forms painted in the six colors, red, orange, yellow, green, Hue and purple. Oil paints which produced a surface having but slight gloss were used. The colors were bright and clear, but no attempt was made to match exact standards, since it was obvious that the soiling from constant handling by the children would quickly produce minor variations from the original colors in any case, and thus preclude precise control of the color factor. This difficulty was reduced to a minimum, however, by frequent cleaning with art-gum and by repainting the blocks at brief intervals throughout the experiment. The complete set included 6 two-inch wooden spheres, one in each of the six colors; 12 two-inch cubes, two in each of the six colors; and 18 cylinders, two inches in diameter and two inches in height, three in each of the six colors. In placing the forms before the children, the cube was used in two positions and the cylinder in three (see Fig. i). * The problem was suggested and the plan of procedure developed by Goodenough, who is also responsible for the method employed in summarizing the results and for writing the article. The data were collected by Brian. 'Alice Descoudres, Couleur, forme, ou nombref Arch, de psychol., 1914, 14, 3O5-341-197 1927. Each child was seen individually, but only the solid forms were used. 2. A group of 143 cases, 78 boys and 65 girls, ranging in age from 14 months to 5 years, 11 months. These children were obtained from the nursery school of the University of Minnesota Institute of Child Welfare and from several Minneapolis day nurseries. The data were obtained during the spring of 1928. The group includes 20 children who had been used as subjects the previous year; but since a full year had elapsed between the two series of experiments, it seemed justifiable to include them. Individual experimentation was again used, and, with a few exceptions, both the solid and the surface forms were tried.3. A total of 216 elementary school children, ranging in age from 6 to 14 years, served as subjects in a group experiment, usin...

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Except for the pioneer study by Gilbert in 1894, 1 few attempts have been made to study developmental changes in simple reaction-time. Nevertheless the problem is one of considerable theoretical interest since the speed with which an individual is able to make a simple motor response to a perceived stimulus may fairly be regarded as a significant index to his basic level of perceptual-motor integration.In Part III of his recent book, Luria 2 describes a number of interesting experiments on the development of the reactive process in young children but does not give quantitative results. Luria emphasizes the diffuse character of the child's early responses to a signal, his inability to make a single prompt response and to inhibit inadequate additional responses. This ability, he states, is relatively late in appearing. "The reaction to a signal, as we know it in the human adult, is a product of very complex development, an elaboration which arises on the basis of other, considerably more primitive processes. The 'simple reaction' in young children differs from the reaction of adults in having another structure, and is characterized by a marked specificity of the diffused excitation, a weakness of those higher regulating mechanisms which are undoubtedly a basic phenomenon in the neurodynamics of the adult. The development of the reactive process from child to adult does not by any means take place by the quantitative improvement of the process but through a qualitative 1