Walter Richard Miles
Walter Richard Miles | |
---|---|
Pacific College University of Iowa | |
Spouse | Catharine Cox Miles |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Psychology |
Institutions | Stanford University Yale University |
Doctoral advisor | Carl Seashore |
Doctoral students | Neil Miller Roger Barker |
Walter Richard Miles (March 29, 1885 – May 15, 1978) was an American psychologist and a president of the American Psychological Association (APA). He best known for his development of the two-story rat maze,[1] his research on low dose alcohol, the development of red night vision goggles for aviation pilots,[2] and the reduction of performance in aging individuals.[3][4] However, the theme of his academic career was his fascination with apparatuses to measure behavior. C. James Goodwin (2003) noted that Miles "never became a leading figure in any particular area of research in psychology... but drifted from one area to another, with the direction of the drift determined often by the presence of a particular type of apparatus or an apparatus-related problem that intrigued him" (p. 58).[5]
Early life
Born into a
Education
In 1901 Miles entered
After graduating from Earlham, he moved home for the summer before accepting a teaching position in psychology and education at
Career
Wesleyan College/Carnegie Institution (1914–1922)
Miles began working as a
While at the Carnegie Nutrition Laboratory, Miles was inspired by Dodge's work and conducted a host of important research on the psychological effects of low and moderate dose alcohol. Miles created various apparatuses to test the effects of alcohol including the pursuit pendulum[14] to measure eye motion and response times of intoxicated subjects.[15][16] Psychologist C. James Goodwin reviewed Miles' work on alcohol research in a 2014 publication in the History of Psychology journal.[16] Goodwin noted that Miles published several papers and technical reports on this work. However, most notably Miles compiled a 298-page monograph in 1924 detailing five sets of studies that spanned over 10 years.[17] He first examined the effects of moderate doses of alcohol (i.e., 14%–22% by weight) on behavior and demonstrated that this impairs motor skills. Specifically, he gave five male participants moderate doses of alcohol and demonstrated that alcohol reduces typing efficiency, finger movement speed, and horizontal eye movement speed. Miles came up with a novel method of disguising placebo beverages in this study that is still used today: wiping the rim of the glass with alcohol. In the second study, Miles used similar methodology as the first study with the exception of giving participants alcohol after eating a full meal to see if food diluted the effects of alcohol. It reduced adverse effects, but still impair performance. In the third study, Miles collaborated with T. M. Carpenter to examine the effects of alcohol administered via rectal injection during sleep. Rectal injection of either alcohol or a saline solution was used to ensure the participant did not know if he was being administered alcohol or a placebo, and because it was believed that alcohol would be absorbed more quickly into the bloodstream than by oral administration. In the fourth study, Miles examined the effects of low dose alcohol on behavior by conducting a series of studies of two years with a 36-year-old male. This study lead to the fifth set of studies that further examined low dose alcohol using 8 subjects between the ages of 22 and 52.
Miles' research on the effects of alcohol in the 1920s was fitting given the debate about alcohol that led to
Additionally, with the start of
Stanford University (1922–1932)
Although Miles was happy at Carnegie, he missed teaching and the academic environment he briefly experienced in his year at Wesleyan. Thus, when Lewis Terman offered him a position at Stanford University in
Yale University (1932–1952)
Miles first came to Yale in 1930 before returning to Stanford in 1931. He came to Yale at the request of Dodge who asked Miles is there was "any possibility of inducing you to come here in a position parallel with mine with the expectation that within a few years you will take my place".[23] Dodge was suffering from Parkinson's disease and wanted Miles to take over.[6][16] In 1932 Miles made Yale his permanent place of work before reaching the mandatory retirement age over twenty years later in 1952.[6] GRAND. Although his appointment was primarily at the Department of Psychology, his affiliation with the Medical School influenced his research AJ[6] His early years at Yale were focused on publishing his findings from the Stanford Later Maturity Study.[6][24] His work published from data collected at Yale were minor and highly specialized [6][24]
However, when World War II began Miles again became involved in war-related projects. He made one of the best contributions to aviation psychology when he discovered that while waiting to be called for flights, aviators could wear red-lensed goggles. These goggles helped with dark adaptation and could be worn at night so that flyers would immediately be ready for emergency flying when calls came.[6][24]
The University of Istanbul (1954–1957)
Despite Miles' retirement from Yale, he remained active in psychology. Ernest Hilgard heard about a visiting psychologist position at the University of Istanbul and recommended this to Miles given his love of travel.[24] Miles took the position of Professor of Experimental Psychology and created and developed a laboratory there.[16] Although his wife Catharine was also offered a position,[25] she declined. Most notably, Miles supervised a dissertation of a woman who eventually accepted a position on the teaching staff there and the two edited a volume called the Istanbul Studies in Experimental Psychology.[6][24]
Submarine Base at New London, Connecticut (1957–1965)
At the age of 72, Miles accepted a position as scientific director of the Submarine Base at New London, Connecticut, where he stayed for eight years.[6][16][24] His work here included studying problems associated with living together in cramped quarters as well as the effects of long exposures to cold.
Honors
Miles received many awards and recognitions during his distinguished career. Miles was APA president in 1932 a year before accepting a position at Yale.[22] Miles received the Howard Crosby Warren Medal from the Society of Experimental Psychologists in 1949,[26] and American Psychological Foundation Gold Medal in 1962,[27] and was elected to the National Academy of Science in 1933 and the America Philosophical Society in 1944.[6]
Contributions to the field
Miles had several significant publications that influenced the field. His notable publications from his work with studying reaction time and physical exertion of football players:
- Miles, W. R.; Graves, B. C. (1931). "Studies in physical exertion: III. Effect of signal variation on football charging". Research Quarterly. 2 (3): 14–31.
- Miles, W. R. (1931). "Studies in physical exertion: II. Individual and group reaction time in football charging". Research Quarterly. 2 (3): 5–13.
His notable publications on apparatuses and inventions:
- Miles, W. R. (1920). "A pursuit pendulum". Psychological Review. 27 (5): 361–376. doi:10.1037/h0073920.
- Miles, W.R (1927). "The two-story duplicate maze". Journal of Experimental Psychology. 10: 365–377. doi:10.1037/h0073950.
- Miles, W.R. (1943). "Red goggles for producing dark adaptation". Federal Proceedings of American Society for Experimental Biology. 2: 109–115.
His notable publication from his work on alcohol and impairment:
- Miles, W. R. (1924). Alcohol and human efficiency: Experiments with moderate quantities and dilute solutions of ethyl alcohol
on human subjects. Washington, DC: The Carnegie Institute.
- Miles, W. R. (1918). Effect of alcohol on psycho-physiological functions (No. 266). Carnegie Institution of Washington.
Personal life
In 1908, Miles married his college sweetheart Elizabeth Mae Kirk [6] and they had three children: Thomas, Caretta, and Marjorie.[25] Kirk died in 1925, leaving Miles widowed with three teenage children. Two years later, he married psychologist Catharine Cox Miles, who was best known in the field of gifted education.[25] He had one child with Catharine named Anna and a son, Charles, who died at birth.[25] Miles and Catharine collaborated throughout their careers and were together until Miles' death on May 15, 1978, in Sandy Springs, Maryland.[6] Catharine died less than a decade later.[25]
References
- doi:10.1037/h0073950.
- ^ Miles, W.R. (1943). "Red goggles for producing dark adaptation". Federal Proceedings of American Society for Experimental Biology. 2: 109–115.
- JSTOR 1414956.
- ^ a b Miles, Walter Richard (1967). E. G. Boring & G. Lindzey (ed.). A history of psychology in autobiography. Vol. V. East Norwalk, CT: Appleton-Century-Crofts. pp. 221–252.
- ^ Goodwin, C. J. (2003). An insider's look at experimental psychology in America: The diaries of Walter Miles. In D. B. Baker (Ed.), Thick description and fine texture: Studies in the history of psychology (pp. 57–75). Akron, OH: The University of Akron Press.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Hilgard, E.R (1985). "Walter Richard Miller 1885–1979". National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoirs: 409–432.
- ^ "Dr. Walter Richard Miles". Retrieved April 13, 2015.
- ^ Miles, Walter. "Accuracy of the voice in simple pitch singing". Archived from the original on July 20, 2015. Retrieved April 10, 2015.
- ^ PMID 16345007.
- ISBN 978-0-313-29274-3.
- ^ Miles, W. R.; Graves, B. C. (1931). "Studies in physical exertion: III. Effect of signal variation on football charging". Research Quarterly. 2 (3): 14–31.
- ^ Miles, W. R. (1931). "Studies in physical exertion: II. Individual and group reaction time in football charging". Research Quarterly. 2 (3): 5–13.
- .
- doi:10.1037/h0073920.
- .
- ^ PMID 24635685.
- ^ Miles, W. R. (1924). Alcohol and human efficiency: Experiments with moderate quantities and dilute solutions of ethyl alcohol on human subjects. Washington, DC: The Carnegie Institute.
- ^ Benedict, F. G., Miles, W. R., Roth, P., & Smith, H. M. (1919). Human vitality and efficiency under prolonged restricted diet. Carnegie institution of Washington.
- ^ a b Goodwin, C. J., & Royer, L. (Eds.). (2010). Walter Miles and his 1920 grand tour of European physiological and psychological laboratories. Akron, OH: The University of Akron Press.
- ISBN 978-1-931968-85-0. Archived from the originalon November 6, 2014.
- doi:10.1037/h0073950.
- ^ a b "Former APA presidents". American Psychological Association. Retrieved November 15, 2014.
- ^ Dodge, R. (1930). Letter to Walter R. Miles, January 22, 1930. Raymond Dodge papers, Box M846, folder 5. Archives of the History of American Psychology, Center for the History of Psychology, The University of Akron, Akron, OH.
- ^ a b c d e f Hilgard, E. R. (1980). Walter Richard Miles: 1885–1978. The American Journal of Psychology, (3). 565.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-136-57828-1.
- ^ "Howard Crosby Warren Medal". Society of Experimental Psychologists. Retrieved November 15, 2014.
- doi:10.1037/h0047003.