Reanimating experimental psychology: Media archaeology, Hugo Münsterberg, and the 'Testing the Mind' film series.

This article focuses on the historical reconstruction and reanimation of Hugo Münsterberg’s lost 1916 experimental short films, the "Testing the Mind" series, produced in collaboration with Paramount Pictures. Münsterberg, a prominent applied psychologist and former director of the Harvard Psychological Laboratory, adapted psychological aptitude tests into interactive cinematic experiences aimed at engaging early 20th-century movie audiences. Due to the absence of surviving film copies, the author and a team of students used archival scripts, correspondence, and contemporary accounts to digitally recreate one such test, "Have You a Constructive Imagination?", revealing insights into the interplay between psychology, early cinema, and media production. This project also highlights the complex negotiations between scientific rigor and creative expression in the original productions and demonstrates the value of experimental media archaeology and history of science methodologies for understanding lost media artifacts.