Joseph Jastrow

Joseph Jastrow (1863 to 1944) was an American psychologist who contributed to experimental psychology, the design of experiments and psychophysics. He also worked on optical illusions, and several illusions, notably the Jastrow illusion, were first reported in or popularized by his work. Jastrow held that everyone carries their own, often mistaken, preconceptions about psychology, and one of his main aims was to use the scientific method to separate truth from error. He pursued that aim beyond the laboratory, educating the general public through speaking tours, popular print media and the radio, which made him one of the early figures to bring psychological findings to a broad audience in the United States.