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

What is it about?

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 (1903) was involved in psychophysical studies on the perception of brief durations, in the tradition of Vierordt and other mostly German authors. Curtis (1916) provided detailed reports of introspections from participants performing timing tasks, in the manner of her supervisor, Titchener. Sturt (via articles by Oakden & Sturt, 1922, an article by Sturt herself, 1923, and her book The Psychology of Time, from 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.

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