Fechner Day 2005. Proceedings of the 21st Annual Meeting of the International Society for Psychophysics

Abstract

Preface

Welcome to Traverse City, the Cherry Capital of Michigan. We hope you enjoy your stay in this lovely resort town and get a chance to see the beautiful autumn colors.

The impact of Fechner’s research approach extends far beyond psychophysics; many different disciplines and intellectual pioneers, from Wundt to Freud, were influenced by Fechner’s pioneering research and methodology. Similarly, the presentations at Fechner Day 2005 represent a wide range of perspectives and applications and span the continuum from theoretical to applied. As Lewin said, “Nothing is as practical as a good theory,†and our papers reflect the accuracy of that hypothesis with theory applied to both academic and non-academic problems.

We thank Mark Elliott, whose helpful and timely advice made the conference possible in the compressed time frame allowed. Thanks to Steve Link, Ron Verillo, and George Gescheider for preparing tributes to our fallen comrades, Doug Vickers and Sandy Bolanowski. We are grateful to David Rosenbaum for agreeing to be the keynote speaker. We also thank the symposia organizers: Ken Norwich and Willy Wong for “Putting ‘Physics’ back into ‘Psychophysicsâ€; Ehtibar Zdafarov for “Measurement in Perceptionâ€; Simon Grondin for “Processing Temporal Informationâ€; and Ã…ke Hellstrom for “Stimulus Comparison Process.†And thank you to all who are presenting spoken and poster papers.

We owe a special debt to The Department of Psychology of Central Michigan University for providing administrative assistance and funding. The strong support we received from the former chair, Gary Dunbar, and current chair, Hajime Otani, has been invaluable. Dean Gary Shapiro, Provost Tom Storch (both from CMU), and Scott Parker also provided funds to support graduate travel. The Office of Research and Sponsored Programs furnished the poster boards and easels. Lastly, we thank Barbara Houghton, Kay Purtil, and Joan Maul for administrative support.

John S. Monahan Sonya M. Sheffert James T. Townsend