Time Capsule: 1940

Back in the forties, psychologists knew the power of marketing. James Karslake, Ph.D., studied eye movements with an unusual camera he patented with the Purdue Research Foundation. The apparatus, shown here, photographed where and how long a reader looks as she thumbs through a magazine. In his quirky 1940 study, published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, Karslake had test subjects peruse, for example, back issues of the Saturday Evening Post. Some of the ads included in the study were for everyday items such as Chesterfield Cigarettes, Squibb Dental Cream and the DeSoto Motor Car. Karslake's device was shown to help pinpoint which were the most attention-grabbing advertisements of the era. The DeSoto, among others, scored exceptionally well.