Alfred Binet e il laboratorio di psicologia fisiologica della Sorbonne

This paper is aimed at describing the researches and the role played by Alfred Binet (1857-1911) at the Sorbonne Laboratory of physiological psychology. This laboratory was founded in 1889 by Théodule Ribot (1839-1916) and Louis Liard (1846-1917), director of the higher education, who charged the physiologist Henry Beaunis (1830-1921) to the directorship of the laboratory. Binet was soon asked by Beaunis to join the activities of the Paris laboratory, and since 1894 he was at the head of this institution, until his death, which occurred in 1911. Binet’s goal was the study of a number of topics such as sensations, complex psychical phenomena like memory, thinking, consciousness, double consciousness of hysterics, and so on. The laboratory tools he employed were drawn from the Wundtian tradition, the French physiology and the anthropometric tradition.