Alfred Binet
(born July 8, 1857, Nice, France — died Oct. 18, 1911, Paris) French psychologist. His interest in
Jean-Martin Charcot's work on hypnosis prompted him to abandon a law career and study medicine at the Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris (1878 – 91). He served as director of a research laboratory at the Sorbonne (1895 – 1911). A major figure in the development of experimental psychology in France, he founded
L'Année Psychologique, the first French journal on psychology, in 1895. He developed experimental techniques to measure reasoning ability; between 1905 and 1911 he and Theodore Simon developed influential scales for the measurement of intelligence of children. His works include
Experimental Study of Intelligence (1903) and
A Method of Measuring the Development of the Intelligence of Young Children (1915).
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