Binet, Alfred (1857-1911)

French psychologist who introduced the first intelligence tests 1905. They were standardized so that the last of a set of graded tests the child could successfully complete gave the level described as 'mental age'. If the test was passed by most children over 12, for instance, but failed by those younger, it was said to show a mental age of 12. Binet published these in collaboration with Théodore Simon. Binet was born in Nice and studied neurology and psychology in Paris, becoming director of the physiological psychology laboratory at the Sorbonne 1895. Binet wrote several books on mental processes and reasoning ability, including L'Etude experimentale de l'intelligence/Experimental Study of Intelligence 1903, a study of his two daughters. In addition he devised several tests that involved interpreting a subject's response to visual stimuli such as ink blots and pictures, the forerunners of some modern personality tests.