Debunking the Self: Jastrow, Münsterberg and the Automatograph
Abstract
In the 1890s, while director of the psychology laboratory at the University of Wisconsin, Joseph Jastrow invented a psychological instrument he called the ‘automatograph’. It was a simple but highly sensitive mechanical device consisting primarily of two panes of glass lain on top of one another, separated by three brass ball bearings. By means of a scriber attached to the top pane, Jastrow used the automatograph to amplify and record onto a smoked glass plate or revolving drum the involuntary movements of a person's hand and arm. With a subject’s hand resting on the top pane of glass, and shielded from view with a curtain, Jastrow found that despite being given an instruction not to, subjects would move their hands in ways which they were unaware and in correspondence with the stimuli they were exposed to. For Jastrow the images obtained by the automatograph were evidence for the existence of involuntary, subconscious movement and the potential legibility of its instrumental records.
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