Test Developer Profiles

Alfred Binet

Test Developed:

Binet-Simon Test of Intelligence

Born in Nice, France, to a family in which both his father and his grandfather were physicians, young Alfred was also expected to take up medicine as his calling. It is believed, however, that a childhood exposure to a cadaver by his father pushed the young Binet away from medicine and into law school instead. Binet was a lawyer by age 21, but because of his family's wealth felt no necessity to practice law. Binet spent much of his time in the library, reading psychology books, among other things. In 1880, Binet himself published a psychology-related article, though it was subsequently criticized as having been plagiarized. Binet's interest was caught for a while by the subject of "animal magnetism"--"hypnosis--"and he published numerous papers detailing how magnets could change emotions, influence perceptions, and accomplish all sorts of other things--"things that hypnosis is known to be able to accomplish. To Binet's embarrassment, his findings would be shown to have been an artifact of poor experimental methodology. In 1894, Binet earned a doctorate in natural science from the Sorbonne. His doctoral dissertation concerned the correlation between insects' physiology and behavior. In 1899, while he was director of the physiological psychology laboratory at the Sorbonne, Binet took into his employ a 26-year-old physician named Théodore Simon. The association was to be of historic significance. Given impetus by Binet's growing dedication to finding a way of identifying and then properly educating the slow child, the Binet-Simon test of intelligence would be published in 1905--a test that most historians view as the launching stimulus for the testing movement.

Consistent with present-day beliefs concerning the assessment of intelligence, Binet also acknowledged that an intelligence test could provide only a sample of all of an individual's intelligent behaviors. Further, Binet wrote that the purpose of an intelligence test was to classify, not to measure: I have not sought in the above lines to sketch a method of measuring, in the physical sense of the word, but only a method of classification of individuals. The procedures which I have indicated will, if perfected, come to classify a person before or after such another person, or such another series of persons; but I do not believe that one may measure one of the intellectual aptitudes in the sense that one measures a length or a capacity. Thus, when a person studied can retain seven figures after a single audition, one can class him, from the point of his memory for figures, after the individual who retains eight figures under the same conditions, and before those who retain six. It is a classification, not a measurement... we do not measure, we classify. (Binet, quoted in Varon, 1936, p. 41) Reference Varon, E. J. (1936). Alfred Binet's concept of intelligence. Psychological Review, 43, 32--49.

Born in Nice, France, to a family in which both his father and his grandfather were physicians, young Alfred was also expected to take up medicine as his calling. It is believed, however, that a childhood exposure to a cadaver by his father pushed the young Binet away from medicine and into law school instead. Binet was a lawyer by age 21, but because of his family's wealth felt no necessity to practice law. Binet spent much of his time in the library, reading psychology books, among other things. In 1880, Binet himself published a psychology-related article, though it was subsequently criticized as having been plagiarized. Binet's interest was caught for a while by the subject of "animal magnetism"--"hypnosis--"and he published numerous papers detailing how magnets could change emotions, influence perceptions, and accomplish all sorts of other things--"things that hypnosis is known to be able to accomplish. To Binet's embarrassment, his findings would be shown to have been an artifact of poor experimental methodology.

In 1894, Binet earned a doctorate in natural science from the Sorbonne. His doctoral dissertation concerned the correlation between insects' physiology and behavior. In 1899, while he was director of the physiological psychology laboratory at the Sorbonne, Binet took into his employ a 26-year-old physician named Théodore Simon. The association was to be of historic significance. Given impetus by Binet's growing dedication to finding a way of identifying and then properly educating the slow child, the Binet-Simon test of intelligence would be published in 1905--a test that most historians view as the launching stimulus for the testing movement.

Consistent with present-day beliefs concerning the assessment of intelligence, Binet also acknowledged that an intelligence test could provide only a sample of all of an individual's intelligent behaviors. Further, Binet wrote that the purpose of an intelligence test was to classify, not to measure: launching stimulus for the testing movement.

Consistent with present-day beliefs concerning the assessment of intelligence, Binet also acknowledged that an intelligence test could provide only a sample of all of an individual's intelligent behaviors. Further, Binet wrote that the purpose of an intelligence test was to classify, not to measure: such another series of persons; but I do not believe that one may measure one of the intellectual aptitudes in the sense that one measures a length or a capacity. Thus, when a person studied can retain seven figures after a single audition, one can class him, from the point of his memory for figures, after the individual who retains eight figures under the same conditions, and before those who retain six. It is a classification, not a measurement... we do not measure, we classify. (Binet, quoted in Varon, 1936, p. 41)

Reference

Varon, E. J. (1936). Alfred Binet's concept of intelligence. Psychological Review, 43, 32--49.

David Wechsler, Ph.D.

Tests Developed: Wechsler-Bellevue Intelligence Scale Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence

Born in Romania in 1896, David Wechsler came to New York City six years later with his parents and six older siblings. He completed his bachelor's degree in 1916 at City College (New York) and obtained a master's degree at Columbia University the following year.

While awaiting induction into the Army at a base in Long Island, Wechsler came in contact with the renowned historian of psychology, E. G. Boring. Wechsler assisted Boring by evaluating the data from one of the first large-scale administrations of a group intelligence test (the Army Alpha test) as the nation geared up for World War I. Wechsler was subsequently assigned to an Army base in Fort Logan, Texas, where his primary duty was administering individual intelligence tests such as the newly published Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale.

Discharged from the Army in 1919, Wechsler spent two years studying in Europe, where he had the opportunity to study with Charles Spearman and Karl Pearson, two brilliant English statisticians known primarily for their work in the area of correlation. Upon his return to New York City, he took a position as a staff psychologist with the Bureau of Child Guidance. In 1935, Wechsler earned a Ph.D. from Columbia University. His dissertation was entitled "The Measurement of Emotional Reactions." By 1932, Wechsler was appointed Chief Psychologist at Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital. Seven years later, the individually administered test Wechsler had designed to measure an adult's intelligence in adult terms, the Wechsler-Bellevue Intelligence Scale, was a reality. Three years later, in 1942, came a revision of that test referred to variously as the Wechsler-Bellevue II and as the Army Wechsler. In 1949, Wechsler published the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC). This was followed in 1955 by a revision of the Wechsler-Bellevue II that was named the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS). The Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI) was published in 1967, and in 1974 a revision of the WISC, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R), was published. Wechsler's revision of the WAIS, the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R), was published in 1981, the same year that this prolific and internationally respected psychologist died.