NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 
295 
The Psychological Laboratory of Cornell University 
During the past fall Cornell University has completed the remodeling and 
reconstruction of its psychological laboratory, located on the third and fourth 
floors of Morrill Hall—one of the three buildings first erected by the University.1 
The building, constructed of stone and wood, is very sturdy and is well adapted to 
the needs of the laboratory. The outside walls and the cross-partitions are of stone, 
varying from 24 to 30 in. in thickness; the floor and ceiling timbers are 4 x 16 in. 
Both floors of the laboratory have been completely remodeled, as those pre¬ 
viously acquainted with the laboratory can see by examining the accompanying 
floor-plans (Figs. 1 and 2). The lower floor (Fig. 1) contains the departmental 
offices, the elementary laboratory, and the lecture rooms for the laboratory and 
advanced courses. The upper floor (Fig. 2) contains the advanced and research 
laboratories, a seminary and reading room, an apparatus room, a store room, and 
the business and editorial offices and the stock room of this Journal. 
Lower floor. The administrative office and the offices of the general instructors 
are grouped around the entrance hall, while the laboratory instructors have their 
offices in the heart of the laboratory. Twenty rooms, including two offices, a lec¬ 
ture room, a shop, five dark rooms (four small and one large),2 and eleven daylight 
rooms (nine small and two large), constitute the elementary laboratory. Every 
one of the laboratory rooms is equipped with an apparatus case, a black board, a 
table, and several chairs, and contains apparatus and equipment necessary for a 
definite group of experiments. Visual experiments are performed in the dark 
rooms under the illumination of ‘daylite’ lamps, and the lamps, color mixers, 
campimeters, etc., are parts of the permanent equipment of those rooms. The 
students, who work in pairs, move from room to room as they complete a group of 
experiments. A hallway extends from the entrance hall to the lecture rooms for 
the advanced courses3 and to the stairway leading to the upper floor. 
Upper floor. The advanced laboratory, providing instruction in the psycho¬ 
physical and statistical methods, consists of five rooms : a large central room, which 
serves as a lecture and computing room and is equipped with chairs and tables and 
with modern computing machines; and four smaller rooms, one a darkroom.4 As 
in the elementary laboratory, every one of the smaller rooms has its own apparatus 
case and equipment for the experiments assigned to it. 
The research laboratory, also on the fourth floor, consists of a large central 
hall and fourteen small rooms opening off it (rooms A-N, Fig. 2). The central 
hall is used as a museum and for meetings and receptions. Every one of the small 
rooms has an outside window, and is supplied with D.C. and A.C. current and 
with twenty connections to the laboratory wiring system. Some of the rooms are 
'For a description of the laboratory of 1900 and an inventory of the apparatus 
then available cf. E. B. Titchener, The Psychological Laboratory of Cornell Uni¬ 
versity, 1900. The laboratory at that time was housed in eleven rooms on the top 
floor of Morrill Hall. 
'These rooms are grayish, not black. Black rooms are, we believe, depressing 
and in most instances are unnecessary and undesirable. 
3The lecture room for the elementary courses is located in another building. 
It seats over 200 students, and adjoins a well-equipped demonstrational laboratory. 
4The ceiling and the upper part of the walls of this room are painted black; 
the lower part is painted a neutral gray, and may be covered when occasion de¬ 
mands by means of black curtains, thus providing one black dark-room.