L’Étude expérimentale de l’intelligence

Alfred Binet, a French psychologist, was a pioneer in the field of experimental psychology and the measurement of intelligence. He sought to develop experimental methods to measure higher mental processes, moving away from German laboratory research on sensation and perception.

In his work L’Étude expérimentale de l’intelligence (1903), Binet investigated the mental characteristics of his daughters, which he expanded into a systematic study of different personality types. This research laid the groundwork for his later, highly influential scales for measuring children's intelligence, developed with Théodore Simon between 1905 and 1911. Binet's approach emphasized skills like judgment, comprehension, and reasoning, contrasting with earlier methods that focused on psychophysical tasks.12