The Legacy of the Laboratory: Psychological and Brain Sciences at Indiana University, 1888-2013

Abstract

The Indiana University Psychological Laboratory, organized in 1888, was the first research and teaching laboratory devoted to experimental psychology in the Midwest, and the second such facility established in the United States. This laboratory served as the matrix for the development of scientific psychology as an academic discipline at Indiana, and provided the seed for the current Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. The department, like American psychology generally, has evolved considerably since that time, both intellectually and institutionally. The early general-purpose laboratory has proliferated into many specialized laboratories that pursue investigations in a variety of fields, and the department conducts a multifaceted program of research, teaching, and service activities. Despite significant changes in scale, operation, and agenda, however, laboratory research has remained the vital center of psychological and neuroscientific studies at Indiana University for well over a hundred years.