Photo courtsey of Psychology Department of Kansas State University, 1966, KSU Royal Purple Year book, p. 509
Harry Helson was an American psychologist and professor of psychology [1] who is best known for his adaptation-level theory. He was born on November 9, 1898, in Chelsea, Massachusetts in USA and died on October 13, 1977, in Berkeley, USA [1, 2]. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. They separated and subsequently he lived with his mother until the age of ten. Helson then went to live with his father for a year, after which he left to live with his mother’s friends until he was an adult [1–3]. He struggled with disciplinary issues in his early years in school.
Helson studied philosophy and psychology at Bowdoin College in Maine where he worked as a reporter for the college’s newspaper and played the violin to fund his schooling. He continued his postgraduate studies in philosophy at Harvard University, but by his second year and after being introduced to Gestalt psychology, he decided to change his concentration to psychology. Helson completed his PhD dissertation on a critical review of Gestalt psychology in 1924 [4, 5]. He was married to Lida Anderson and his son, Henry, was also a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
At the time, most of the original research on Gestalt psychology was in German. The publication of Helson’s doctoral dissertation in the American Journal of Psychology in 1925 and 1926 served as an excellent introduction to Gestalt psychology in America.
Helson joined Kansas State University and was a professor from 1961 to 1968. There with his colleagues, he developed his adaptive-level theory of cognition. [6] While working in a photography darkroom illuminated in red, he noticed that the end of his cigarette was green. This resulted in several years of experimentation on the topic and the development of color conversion principles [5].
67.1 The Adaptation-Level Theory and Helson–Judd Effect
Most of Helson’s work and research focused on the perception of color. Helson developed the adaptation-level theory of psychology. This theory states that an individual’s basis of judgment of a stimulus is based on their prior subjective experiences as well as their recollections of how they perceived similar stimuli in the past and in different situations [5–7]. Helson also noted that stimuli may appear achromatic under monochromatic lighting and based on the mode of viewing and also the background. This finding led him to his recognition of how adaptation levels work in vision [3]. While this adaptation-level theory was initially based on his experiments involving vision, it can be applied to attitudes, sounds, light, and many other concepts.
In 1952 and together with Judd, he presented results of meticulous work on the subject of color constancy. They noted that lighter achromatic surfaces tend to take on the hue of the illuminant under which they are viewed and darker achromatic surfaces take on the complementary hue [8]. This became known as Helson–Judd effect.
He received American Psychology Association award for distinguished scientific contributions to psychology in 1962.
Kansas State University recognizes his contributions to the field through the Harry Helson Award, which is given to a graduate student for their excellence in scholarship and research in cognitive psychology [8].