Irion, Arthur L.

Arthur L. Irion was born May 18, 1918, in Springfield, Missouri. Irion majored in psychology at the University of Missouri and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1939. Following graduation, Irion began graduate school at the University of Iowa (then the State University of Iowa) and finished his M.A. in 1941.

Irion joined the U.S. Army from 1942 to 1946, starting as a private, moving to gunnery sergeant, and ending his military career as second lieutenant. Irion was part of a psychological group that developed verbal and motor skills tasks for pilot selection. After the end of the war, Irion returned to the University of Iowa and finished his Ph.D. in 1947.

After receiving his Ph.D., Irion took an instructor position at the University of Illinois. He researched the retention of memory for both motor skills and verbal stimuli utilizing variables such as set, warming up, and intertrial interval. After four years, Irion became assistant professor, and began working on a substantial revision of the text The Psychology of Human Learning with John McGeoch. This revision would be published in 1952.

In 1951, Irion left Illinois to become professor of psychology and department chair at Tulane University. Irion established an experimental psychology program, recruited faculty, and developed a curriculum. He performed these functions at Tulane for the next 18 years.

In 1968, Irion joined the faculty of the new University of Missouri St. Louis. Again, Irion developed the program at this new university, establishing a Ph.D. program for clinical and experimental psychology in 1971. Irion was appointed professor emeritus in 1980. He passed away in 1999.

From the guide to the Arthur L. Irion papers, 1914-1996, (Center for the History of Psychology)