Oversea research project to gather historical documents, data, and records of experimental equipments about Japanese Psychology

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The first aim of this oversea research project is to find out or to gather historical documents which tell us the starting background of new psychology (that means the scientific and experimental psychology), and acceptance and developmental processes of this psychology in Japan, and also to find the records of founders who brought modern psychology into Japan, and whose mentors of this academic field in the world. The secondly, it is very important for us to leave not only records but also real historical experimental devices that played important roles in establishing modern scientific psychology for the future. It was clearly shown that among those historical instruments, chronometrical instruments such as Wundt's chronograph, Hipp's chronometer and/or Scriputure's swing chronometer were the most useful and important tools for measuring mental time, which is a reaction time or response latency time used clarifying the invisible inner mental processes. However, almost all of these do … More cuments, records, and instruments thrown away or disappeared from laboratories of psychology departments all over the world with innovations of modern technology, and only remain in the memory of old psychologist who are still alive, or in a few Archives of the History of Psychology, such as Akron University, and the oldest psychological laboratory, such as Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, and Clark University, in USA. To avoid this crisis, it is very important for us to construct such archives and/or to make collections as those at Akron and Harvard University as soon as possible. So, it is our great regret that it is an essential way for us to explore such oversea Archives and collections of historical experimental instruments, or department of psychology and library to find out necessary information and documents or records about Japanese history of psychology. Basically, this is the reason why this oversea research project is planed. From these research, the process of sowing modern western psychology and seeing it blossom on Japanese ground is clarified from various viewpoints as follows ; 1)The origin of the scientific name, "shinrigaku", in Japanese comes from the book titled "mental philosophy" written by J.Haven, not Psychology, and translated into Japanese by Amane Nishi. 2)Who brought modern psychology to Japan, and who was their mentor? The founder's name was Yujiro Motora, who received a Ph. D, under the supervision of Dr.G.S.Hall, from Johns Hopkins University in 1888. Dr.Motora returned to Japan and took a position at the Imperial University, which was the only public university in the Meiji era, and first lectured on psychophysics, opening his laboratory for experimental psychology in 1903. 3)An overview of the history of psychology after Motora in Japan and the background to the development of the Japanese Psychological Association established in 1927. 4)The spread processes of modern psychology through the public and/or private educational system in Japan and overseas financial support from such as the Rockefeller foundation.. Less