Samuel Renshaw (1892–1981)[1] was an American psychologist whose work became famous for a short period of time during World War II when he taught sailors to identify enemy aircraft in a split second, using tachistoscopic training.
[citation needed] Robert A. Heinlein depicted the technique in several of his works, including Citizen of the Galaxy (1957) and Gulf (1949); and mentioned Renshaw in the context of the training of Fair Witnesses in Stranger in a Strange Land (1961).
He cited a Saturday Evening Post article on Renshaw's studies for responses to fan mail about the subject.
The "Renshaw Training System for Aircraft and Ship Recognition" is considered to have "saved untold lives during World War II".
[7] Renshaw, S. (1945), "The visual perception and reproduction of forms by tachistoscopic methods", Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied, 20 (2): 217–232, doi:10.1080/00223980.1945.9917254