Departures of note

George Malcolm Stratton, a psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley, conducted a landmark experiment in perception by wearing inverting glasses that flipped his vision upside-down and left-right. Over several days, he adapted to the distorted view, a finding that demonstrated the brain's capacity to recalibrate sensory input and influenced later research in neuroimaging and art.

Born in Oakland, California, in 1865, Stratton studied under Wilhelm Wundt at Leipzig, earning his PhD summa cum laude in 1896. He then founded one of the first experimental psychology laboratories in the United States at Berkeley, where he later established the psychology department and served as its first chair in 1922. He also taught at Johns Hopkins from 1904 to 1909 before returning to Berkeley.

During World War I, Stratton served in the U.S. Army, developing psychological tests for aviator selection and rising from captain to major in 1918. An anti-war advocate, he believed psychology could help prevent conflicts, though he also held that races were not equal in inborn mental capacity. He authored eight books, including works on experimental psychology, the psychology of religion, anger, and international conduct, and translated Greek philosophers.

Stratton retired in 1935 but continued working at the university until near his death in 1957, at age 92. He was survived by a son and two daughters, and was working on a book about the divisive and unifying forces of the community of nations at the time of his death. His hobbies included brick-laying and camping, and he once suggested that music could heal the sick.