Alfred Binet is famous as the author of the IQ test that bears his name. He is almost unkown, however, as the investigator who generated numerous fascinating investigations into developmental, experimental, educational, and social psychology. This «other» Binet generated tasks, findings, and interpretations that foreshadowed current work on children's understanding of number conservation, validity of children's eyewitness testimony, the constructive nature of memory, effects of group pressure on conformity, and individual differences in cognitive styles. This article reviews Binet's major contributions, considers why the fame of his intelligence scale was so lasting and why that of his other contributions was so fleeting, and discusses implications of his contributions for current efforts to formulate unified theories of cognition and cognitive development
Read full abstract