Paul Fraisse

Paul Fraisse (20 March 1911–12 October 1996) was a French psychologist known his work in the field of perception of time.

Biography

Fraisse trained in theology as part of a Jesuit Novitiate to become a Jesuit priest. These plans were abandoned owing to poor health. Later, he turned to philosophy and scholastic philosophy at the Catholic University of Lyon, still hoping to prepare for the priesthood. After his degree, a faculty member suggested that he go to the Catholic University of Louvain where experimental psychology had an important place in the Institute of Philosophy. There he spent 1935–1937 as laboratory assistant to Albert Michotte, doing experiments on visual perception and preparing for examinations in philosophy. In 1937 Fraisse began to give courses in psychology at the Catholic University of Lyon but would live in Paris, where Henri Piéron, on the recommendation of Michotte, took Fraisse into his laboratory.

He was imprisoned for three years during World War II. After the war, he, Emmanuel Mounier, Paul Ricœur and Jean-Marie Domenach founded the community of the White Walls in Châtenay-Malabry.

In 1952, Fraisse took over from Henri Piéron as director of the Laboratoire de Psychologie Experimentale. They had four children, including the feminist philosopher Geneviève Fraisse. Traité de psychologie expérimentale, Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 1963, 1re éd., 9 vol. (Paul Fraisse and Jean Piaget)