Arthur Weever Melton (August 13, 1906 – November 5, 1978) was an American experimental psychologist, researcher, and professor.
He went on to graduate school at Yale University under the mentorship of Edward S. Robinson, another functionalist, whose research focused on verbal learning.
[7] In 1935, Melton obtained a position as the chairman of the Department of Psychology at the University of Missouri[1] Under Melton's leadership, the department established a highly regarded, nationally recognized and rigorous master's degree program that ensured automatic admission to a PhD program at any university upon completion.
During this time, Melton began his lifelong research on human learning and memory using a functional approach.
He combined this functional approach with process ideas to show the mental operations that are not directly observable.
He published two seminal pieces, one with Jean McQueen Irwin (1940) [8] on interpolated learning and with W. J. von Lackum (1941) [9] on the two-factor theory of retroactive interference.
They found a phenomenon, which they called Factor X, that was large and systematically increased with the amount of interpolated learning of list two.
With these papers, Melton extended prior work to show that forgetting was due to both response competition and unlearning, which was dubbed the two-factor theory of retroactive interference.
[10] He helped develop a battery of psychomotor tests, assessing perceptual-motor coordination and related factors necessary for flying, for pilot selection in the air force.
[7] Towards the end of his life, Melton suffered from debilitating health problems that severely decreased his vision.
[4] In an article written for the American Psychological Foundation Awards in 1976,[14] Melton was described as " a leader in the experimental study of human learning, whose theoretical insights and systematic analyses have profoundly influenced the direction of research."