The British psychologist Sir Frederic Charles Bartlett (1886-1969) made his main contribution through the development of applied experimental psychology in Britain during and after World War II.

Frederic Bartlett was born on Oct. 22, 1886. He was educated privately and at St. John's College, Cambridge, of which he became a fellow. Strongly influenced by the physician, ethnologist, and psychologist W.H.R. Rivers, Bartlett showed early leanings toward anthropology; but circumstances, not the least of which was the outbreak of World War I, led him to a career in psychology. After the war Bartlett returned to Cambridge, succeeding C.S. Myers as director of the psychological laboratory in 1922 and becoming professor of experimental psychology in 1931, a post which he held until his retirement in 1952. He died at Cambridge on Sept. 30, 1969.

Bartlett's early interests lay in the experimental study of perception and memory. He distrusted the overanalytical approach of the German...