ABSTRACT
In 1880, Alfred Binet began his tenure at the Sorbonne's psychological laboratory in experimental research. E. L. Thorndike was one of the first psychologists who highlighted the field's interdisciplinary nature and application to education. Binet's development of a mental test for retarded and feebleminded children seems to have overshadowed his overall contribution to psychological testing and his intelligence test is recognized as his most lasting international contribution. James McKeen Cattell extended and enhanced Francis Galton's anthropometric measures, introducing the measurement of individual qualities as an elemental function of psychological study in his laboratories at the University of Pennsylvania. In addition to providing foundational work on individual differences from which the field of gifted education would evolve, Cattell inadvertently contributed to the growth of gifted education on a much more human and personal level. Cattell's initial research sought to establish the link between "psychophysical methods to mental tests", even introducing the term mental test.
