This paper presents a brief review of Rivers's contribution to psychology, especially to his cross-cultural studies of the basic perceptual processes of vision, and examines the lasting influence of his findings. It reports briefly on the scientific milieu in which Rivers carried out his work and traces the growth of his interest in the psychology of perception from the early days of his medical work to his appointment as a foundation lecturer of two English universities, London and Cambridge. It is argued that Rivers's contribution has been undervalued by psychologists.
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References
1.
Note: The list contains all those publications by W H R Rivers which pertain to his psychological work described in this paper although some of them are not referred to directly in the body of the paper. His publications on other topics are not as a rule included. A full bibliography of his works published before the year 1923 is published by Fegan (1922).
2.
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RiversW H R, 1896a“On mental fatigue and recovery”Journal of Mental Science42525–529
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RiversW H R, 1896b“On apparent size of objects”Mind (New Series)571–80
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RiversW H R, 1898“The photometry of coloured papers”Journal of Physiology (London)22137–145
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RiversW H R, 1900“Vision”, in Textbook of Physiologyvolume II, Ed. Sharpey-SchaferE, (Edinburgh: Pentland) pp 1026–1148
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RiversW H R, 1901a“On erythropsia”Transactions of the Ophthalmological Society of the United Kingdom21296–305
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RiversW H R, 1901b“Vision”, in Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straitsvolume 2, Ed. HaddonA C, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) pp 1–132
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RiversW H R, 1901c“The colour vision of the natives of Upper Egypt”Journal of the Anthropological Institute31229–247
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RiversW H R, 1901d“The colour vision of the Eskimo”Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society11143–149
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RiversW H R, 1901e“Primitive colour vision”Popular Science Monthly5944–58
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RiversW H R, 1903“Observations on the vision of the Urális and Sholagus”Madras Government Museum Bulletin53–18
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