What is Twitmyer’s experience of interest to historians of psychology?
Work by Twitmyer concerned the known reflexes of knee-jerk. He noticed that subjects were responding to some other stimuli rather than the initial stimulus, which was tapping of the hammer underneath the knee. He demonstrated the reactions of the subjects as a novel and uncommon type of reflex.
Twitmyer was inexperienced and young, and lacked economic resources and skills to publicize and preserve his ideologies. It was believed that, his retrospection about the occasion always blended with the feelings of defeat at his failure in expressing concern in his observations.
Historians recollect this sorrowful story of a scientist, who, by his work, could have been a famous man for discovering some phenomenal concepts of psychology. It is said that Twitmyer should have fought with the realization for much of his life – an appreciation of what his tradition to the psychology may have been.