Hipp Chronoscope

HIPP CHRONOSCOPE (Hipp) (clock), serves for measuring time of psychological reaction. It represents a mechanism driven by a weight. With the help of a lever

Figure 2. View from behind.

Figure 3. They are set in motion with lever N¹, and with lever Y² they are stopped (see figures 1, 2 and 3). But the hands of the dials, usually disconnected from the mechanism, move only when current is passed to the lower electromagnets ('start'), and stop if there is no current in the circuit or

Figure 4. Connection diagram for measuring psychological reaction time; Thick line - circuit of 'starting' electromagnets. Dashed line - connections of individual parts of the key inside the latter.

current passes through the upper electromagnets ('brake'). The lower dial shows tenths of a second, the upper shows thousandths. Thus, by adding the reading of the upper dial to the reading of the lower, one obtains the total figure in thousandths of a second (denoted by the Greek letter?). The experimenter, pressing the left key (see figure 4), simultaneously closes the circuit of the light bulb (light stimulus) in the lower electromagnets and opens the circuit in the upper electromagnets. At this moment the light bulb lights up, and the hands begin to rotate. The subject, reacting to the stimulus, presses his key (on the right), opens the circuit in the lower electromagnets ('start') and closes it in the upper ('brake'). The hands stop. During the time interval from the presentation of the stimulus to the reaction of the subject, the hands move. Subtracting the first reading from the second, one obtains the reaction time in thousandths of a second. Other connection schemes are also used.