Two Daniel Katz's

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There appear to have been two men named Daniel Katz who are significant figures in the history of psychology. One of them (July 18, 1903 - Feb. 28, 1998) was important in social psychology. But I don't know anything about the other Daniel Katz (Oct. 1, 1884 - Feb 2, 1953). Can anyone share information about the earlier Daniel Katz? Does anyone know the middle name or initial of either?

-- Pat Williams (williamsp@uhd.edu), September 26, 2002

Answers

David Katz was a German psychologist who migrated to Sweden in the '30s. He was the author/compiler of the Psychological Atlas (1948 in its English version), a collection of illustrations of psychological stimuli and perceptual phenomena (it embraces a lot of illustrations of obscure Gestalt psychological diagrams.) Of the preceding information I am sure, 'cause I checked it in WorldCat; I am less sure of Katz's theoretic and experimental contributions, but my memory says they were in the area of the Gestalt analysis of relative brightness. Did he not show in 1929 that a black card illuminated with a strong light and exhibited in an otherwise dark room appeared white? His obituary is in the same issue of the American Journal of Psychology from 1953 that contains Martin Luther Reymert's memorial. As I recall it is next to Reymert's. Let me know how mistaken my memory is, if it is. Thanks, Dave Devonis, Graceland University, Lamoni, IA USA devonis@graceland.edu

-- David C. Devonis (devonis@graceland.edu), September 28, 2002.

I didn't mention it in the earlier post, but I noticed the birth and death dates much more than the name. Since these correspond exactly with David Katz's, I must have automatically changed the second 'Daniel Katz' to 'David Katz'--whom I think it is. Best regards Dave Devonis

-- David Devonis (devonis@graceland.edu), September 28, 2002.

David Katz was particularly notable for his phenomenological research into color and distinguished betwen surface and film color, as I recall. This work wasa done around 1910 or so. About 15 years later he published the results of similar work on touch. He was not a Gestaltist tho many of his observations and sympathies were compatable with them. He was clearly a nativist and in that respect, again on the Gestalt side. But I'm pretty sure he took his degree under G. Muller so from an academic perspective he was from a different school than Wertheimer who took his degree under Stumpf. Katz was a fertile investigator and published many books (some translated into English)and well over a hundred articles. How do I remember these things? I discovered them in the course of a study of the Presidents of the International Congresses of Psychology. Katz was President of the 13th Congress in 1951 the same year that the International Union of Scientific Psychology came into being.

-- Richard A. Littman (rlittman@darkwing.uoregon.edu), September 29, 2002.

[Posted for RHW by cdg.]

There was, as far as I know, only one Daniel Katz of note, the social psychologist (1903-1998). The other Katz listed below (1884-1953) isn't Daniel Katz, it is, from the dates, David Katz, the gestalt psychologist and author of a number of books on perception (of touch, color, etc.) and, with his wife Rosa on, Child Psychology. To the best of my knowledge, neither Katz had or at least used) a middle initial.

-- Robert H. Wozniak (rwozniak@BRYNMAWR.EDU), October 01, 2002.


[Posted for LL by cdg.]

My own library of APA directories from the early 1960s shows only one Daniel Katz, never with a middle initial or name, and he was the one at the U of Michigan for many years. My early directories show his birthdate as July 19, 1903. I do not know if he is the same D. Katz whom Kurt Lewin cites rather frequently, sometimes in collaboration with a R. Katz, and always, I think, writing in German (e.g., Psychologische Probleme des Hungers und Appetits, insbesondere beim Kinder, Zeitschr. f. Kinderforsch., 1928, 34, 158-197.

-- Lewis Lipsitt (Lewis_Lipsitt@brown.edu), October 01, 2002.



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