Who is or was E. R. F. W. Crossman, the champion of the Power Law of Learning and the developer of an influential model of aiming?

摘要

It is unusual for very little to be known about a highly influential psychological scientist, but that is the case for the individual responsible for promoting one of the most influential laws of the field, the Power Law of Learning, as well as a seminal model of aiming performance. The individual, who published as E. R. F. W. Crossman, is shrouded in mystery. The authors of the present article sought to find out who Crossman is or was. We discuss the scholarly context for Crossman's work, including the classroom event at which we resolved to find out more about Crossman. In the course of our investigation, which took quite a bit of detective work, we learned that many other psychological scientists have been curious about Crossman as well. Rather than resolve the mystery in this abstract, we leave the reader in the state we were in at first, wanting to satisfy our curiosity and, finally, feeling we had learned important things, not only about the individual at the heart of the investigation, but also about our field in general.