Walter Miles and his research on low dose alcohol (1914-1924): shifting the emphasis from intoxication to impairment.

During his tenure (1914-1922) as a research scientist at Boston's Carnegie Nutrition Laboratory, Walter Miles (1885-1978) conducted important and methodologically sophisticated experiments on the psychological effects of low dose (2.75% by weight) alcohol. The research was important because it represented a shift in strategy away from examining the effects of large amounts of alcohol to determine the consequences of alcohol intoxication. Although the amount of alcohol ingested by his subjects was small, Miles was nonetheless able to demonstrate consistent deficits in several types of motor performance. Miles became an acknowledged national expert on the topic of alcohol and its behavioral consequences, and although he was unable to influence the debate that led to repealing National Prohibition in the early 1930s, his research had relevance for an issue that was emerging in the 1930s-the problem of the alcohol-impaired driver. Miles added a scientific and respected voice to the developing momentum for a societal response to the impaired driving question.

The 1928 Carlisle conference: Knight Dunlap and a national laboratory for psychology.

In late March 1928, 32 experimental psychologists met in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The National Research Council (NRC) sponsored the conference, which was organized by Knight Dunlap, chair of the NRC's Division of Anthropology and Psychology. The purpose of the Carlisle conference was to examine the status of experimental psychology, and Dunlap used it to propose a national laboratory for psychology, to be created in Washington, DC. This vision clashed with the traditional university-centered research model and the group resisted Dunlap's plan. Dunlap persisted, the eventual result being a National Institute of Psychology, which accomplished little. The Carlisle conference did succeed in being the impetus for small NRC-funded grants-in-aid to researchers, and it set in motion events that eventually led to the American Psychological Association publication manual.

Reorganizing the experimentalists: the origins of the society of experimental psychologists.

The "Experimentalists," created by E. B. Titchener in 1904, experienced growing pains and other stresses in the 1920s, raising concerns about its future. Those concerns became acute with Titchener's death in 1927. At the 1928 meeting, several "elders," hoping to maintain the group's vigorous advocacy of basic research in the positivist tradition, formed a reorganization committee of 5. The committee expanded to 15, 10 of whom met the following year to debate alternative plans for a new organization. The result was an honorary society for established researchers, the Society of Experimental Psychologists. E. G. Boring's highly personalized 1938 history of the original Experimentalists understated the value of the research contributions made by group members and, by overstating the degree of Titchener's influence, devalued the important contributions of others (e.g., Raymond Dodge).