Roland Clark Davis
| Roland Clark Davis | |
|---|---|
| Born |
December 20, 1902 Cambridge, Massachusetts |
| Died | February 23, 1961 (aged 58) Yellow Springs, Ohio |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Columbia University |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Psychologist |
| Institutions |
University of Virginia Indiana University |
| Doctoral advisor |
Robert S. Woodworth Albert Poffenberger |
| Doctoral students | Oran Wendle Eagleson |
Roland Clark Davis (December 20, 1902– February 23, 1961) was an American psychologist recognized for his innovation in instrumentation and measurement of electrophysiological phenomena. Davis contributed to the measurement of electrodermal activity, gastric reflexes, and muscle action potentials. Davis published over 70 articles on psychophysiology and related topics across a 30-year career and mentored many graduate students at Indiana University Bloomington from 1931 through 1961.
Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts on December 20, 1902, Roland Clark Davis was the eldest child of William Chalmers Davis and Effie Estelle Clark. Davis earned his A.B. in English from Harvard in 1924 and his Ph.D. from Columbia in 1930. Upon leaving Columbia, Davis briefly worked as a research associate for the University of Virginia. Davis married Francis Oliver Meacham on September 12, 1927, in Petersburg, Virginia. They had two children, Susan Oliver and Christopher Meacham. In 1931, Davis was hired as an Acting Associate Professor at Indiana University where he established his psychophysiology laboratory in Science Hall. Davis died on February 23, 1961, at the age of 58 in Yellow Springs, Ohio. He was returning home from a meeting at the Fels Research Institute when he suffered a heart attack.
At Columbia, Davis was mentored by Robert Sessions Woodworth and Albert Poffenberger. In his 1930 dissertation, “Factors Affecting the Galvanic Reflex,” Davis reviewed hundreds of published articles on the galvanic skin response (GSR), producing an extensive and systematic review of GSR.
Davis was the first to use a vacuum tube as a way to control the electrical current during measurement of the GSR. Davis also developed a device that provided an uninterrupted measurement of arterial blood pressure that would not interfere with the subject’s true blood pressure, and he is credited with introducing the cathode-ray oscilloscope technique for measuring muscle action potentials. In collaboration with Douglas Ellson, Irving Saltzman, and Cletus Burke, Davis also developed a lie-detection device.
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