06 April in the History of Psychology

On April 6:

1773 — James Mill was born. Mill was a pioneer of association psychology. His philosophy contended that sensations create ideas that may associate with each other. Complex ideas are compounds of these constituent elements.

1912 — Dorothy Adkins was born. Adkins employed her expertise in factor analysis in studies of affect in children, curriculum design, and educational program evaluation. President, Psychonomic Society, 1950.

1925 — Substitute teacher John Scopes was arrested for teaching evolution in his Dayton, Tennessee, high school biology class. The celebrated "monkey trial" followed. Scopes had agreed to the arrest to provide a court test of Tennessee's law banning the teaching of evolution in the public schools.

1956 — George A. Miller's article "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information" was published in Psychological Review. The article is often cited as a pioneering study in modern cognitive psychology.

1957 — The antidepressant effects of monamine oxidase (MAO) inhibitors were first announced by Harry Loomer at a meeting in Syracuse, New York. The drug was iproniazid, marketed as Marsilid, and was already in use to treat tuberculosis. It was used to treat 400,000 cases of depression in the first year. Marsilid is no longer sold, but its successor, Marplan, is widely prescribed.

1970 — The National Commission on Accreditation (NCA) recognized the APA as an accrediting body in general professional psychology. The action resolved problems with the NCA over programs in school psychology. The University of Texas was the first APA-approved program in school psychology (1970).

1970 — Lithium carbonate, an effective treatment for bipolar mood disorders, was first approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration under the trade names Eskalith (Smith, Kline, and French), Lithonate (Reid-Rowell), and Lithane (Roerig and Miles). The physiological action of lithium remains unknown, but it may affect several neurotransmitter systems.

1972 — The petition to create APA Division 33 (Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities) was submitted. Thomas McCullough and Allen Barclay were instrumental in creating the division.

1973 — The E. F. Lindquist Center for Measurement was dedicated at the University of Iowa. Lindquist was a noteworthy psychometrician and statistician. He developed the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills and the American College Test. With Phillip Rulon, Lindquist invented the first electronic test scoring machine (1955).

1984 — The organizational meeting of the Virginia Academic Psychology Association (VAPA) was held in Richmond. Elizabeth Guy and Raymond Kirby were charged with drafting bylaws and cochaired the founding meeting of the VAPA in November 1984, at the Virginia Psychological Association meeting in Lynchburg. The organization is now named the Virginia Academy of Academic Psychologists.