Three Women in Time: Beatrice Edgell, Josephine Nash Curtis, and Mary Sturt

Abstract

This article discusses research on time perception published by three women (Beatrice Edgell, Josephine Nash Curtis, and Mary Sturt) active in the early years of the 20th. Century. Edgell (On time judgment, Am. J. Psychol., 1903) was involved in psychophysical studies on the perception of brief durations, in the tradition of Vierordt and other mostly German authors. Curtis (Duration and the temporal judgment, Am. J. Psychol., 1916) provided detailed reports of introspections from participants performing timing tasks, in the manner of her supervisor, Titchener. Sturt (via the article by Oakden & Sturt, The development of the knowledge of time in children, Br. J. Psychol., 1922, an article by Sturt herself, Experiments on the estimate of duration, Br. J. Psychol. 1923, and her book The Psychology of Time, 1925) was involved in extensive developmental studies on the understanding of everyday time concepts, such as years, months, and dates, as well as other work involving variations in time judgements as a function of different conditions, such as when receiving painful stimulation.