Schumann's wheel tachistoscope: its reconstruction and its operation

In the fall and winter of 1910, Max Wertheimer (1880-1943) performed his famous experiments on perceived motion, published in 1912. Besides slider experiments he mainly used a wheel tachistoscope developed by Friedrich Schumann (1863-1940) at the end of the 19th century. The Adolf-Wuerth-Center for the History of Psychology has several wheel tachistoscopes in its collection of instruments. Their provenance can be traced back to the Institute of Psychology of the University of Frankfurt and the University of Zurich. It is very plausible that Wertheimer, who performed his experiments at the Frankfurt Institute, used one of them. But the wheel tachistoscope alone is not sufficient to reconstruct Wertheimer's original experiments. As always, the devil is in the details. Wertheimer's descriptions of the necessary accessories, a prism, a viewing device, and an electric motor to move the wheel, are rather sparse. This article describes the results of a search for traces in the literature, in archives, and in literary depositories to shed some light on Wertheimer's experimental equipment. As a result, it was possible to reconstruct the entire apparatus and to obtain the same optical impressions with the reconstructed devices as Wertheimer's observers reported. In addition, one of his results was replicated with new participants exactly 100 years after its first publication.