The Beginning

The First Cognitive Study

Donders, Public Domain, commons.wikimedia.org

Shortly after Weber and Fechner, a Dutch physiologist named Franciscus Donders developed a study that attempted to measure the time it takes for a human to make a decision. He devised a simple, yet clever experiment that allowed for an examination of the mental processes (at least in terms of time) that occur when making a decision. He used a two-part experiment to study decision making. In part one, he used a simple reaction-time task. Subjects would respond by pressing a button as soon as they detected a light. He assumed that the time to respond included the time to perceive the stimulus and then the time to prepare and make the response (by pushing the button). In the second part of the study, he employed a choice reaction-time task. In this case, subjects were presented two lights, one on the left or one on the right. When the left light was turned on, subjects would push a button to the left; when the right light was illuminated, they would push a button on the right. In this case, they must decide which response to make based on the incoming sensory information. In this choice reaction-time task, Donders assumed that the reaction time would include the time to perceive the stimulus along with the time to prepare and make the response. Additionally, since an individual had to make a choice of the response, the reaction time would also include the time to make a decision.

By subtracting the simple reaction-time task from the choice reaction-time task, we can estimate the time it takes to make a decision.

Figure 1.1. Equation for Estimating Decision Timing

It’s that easy! So can we study all decision making based on the results of Donder’s study? Probably not. Most of the decisions we make every day are much more complex than the decisions that were required in Donder’s tasks. We will examine the decision-making process more closely in Lesson 11 ("Reasoning and Decision Making").

The First Psychological Laboratory

Wundt & colleagues, Public Domain, commons.wikimedia.org

Around the time Donders was completing his study, a German named Wilhelm Wundt was developing the method of introspection to examine how the brain represents basic sensory information. He is credited with starting the first psychological laboratory in 1879; however, the method of introspection proved to be too subjective and was abandoned in favor of other methods. Despite the lack of success with introspection, Wundt is considered one of the founders of modern psychology. The image on this page shows Wilhelm Wundt and his colleagues in the first psychology laboratory at the University of Leipzig in Germany.

The First Psychology Textbook

James, Public Domain, commons.wikimedia.org

In the United States, William James wrote one of the first textbooks of psychology, Principles of Psychology, and taught the first courses in psychology. He made observations about many psychological phenomena, including much of cognitive psychology.