Due to the current situation of COVID-19 Pandemic, it is with regret that we must announce that Fechner Day 2020 will be postponed. At present, we plan to hold the meeting in Ottawa in October 2021 at the same location. When we have specific dates , we will provide you with information.
The 35th annual meeting of the International Society for Psychophysics will take place in Antalya, Turkey. The meeting will be held at the Faculty of Letters, Akdeniz (the Mediterranean) University, Antalya, Turkey between October 30th and November 2nd, and is organised in collaboration with Dr. Evrim Gülbetekin and staff of the Department of Psychology at Akdeniz Üniversitesi. Please note that this is a second, but final date change, while the conference venue is also changed. The meeting will now not be held between November 2nd and 6th. The slight change in date is due to a confluence of meetings at the time of the anniversary of the founding of psychophysics and is organised to fall largely over the weekend to maximise opportunities to attend.
Mark A. Elliott (National University of Ireland Galway ) and
Evrim Gülbetekin (Akdeniz Üniversitesi) (joint meeting chairs)
Sophia Arndt (National University of Ireland Galway: website management)
Ece Varlık Özsoy (Akdeniz Üniversitesi: registration and accommodation Regfd19@gmail.com)
Naomi du Bois (Ulster University and National University of Ireland Galway: editorial assistance Submissionfd19@gmail.com)
Seda Bayraktar (Akdeniz Üniversitesi: Turkish registrants Localregfd19@gmail.com)
Aydin Civilidag (Akdeniz Üniversitesi: Middle East registrants Localregfd19@gmail.com)
Mahperi Hekimoglu (Akdeniz Üniversitesi)
Başar Demir (Akdeniz Üniversitesi)
Ayca Ozen (Akdeniz Üniversitesi)
General Information, please email us here: Infofd19@gmail.com
The 34th Annual Meeting of the International Society for Psychophysics took place from 20th – 24th August 2018 in Lüneburg, Germany.
For details of the meeting please visit the official website Fechnerday 2018.
Sophia Arndt, a doctoral candidate at Galway University, created a Fechner Day group on LinkedIn. She would like to invite those interested in psychophysics to join. The group address is:
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13558958
Robert (Bob) Teghtsoonian was not only a founding member of the International Society for Psychophysics. From the very beginning, his continuous and lively engagement in the progress of the Society was outstanding: No one else had a stronger formative influen
ce on the ISP. It was one of his major concerns to encourage young scientists and to facilitate their integration into the scientific community. Bob never put himself at the center of things. And as everybody experienced his honest interest in people and their ideas, people around him felt secure and indeed were. Bob had the uncanny ability to create an atmosphere for open and unprejudiced exchange of ideas. Whatever the occasion, he always found the right words, the right wine, and the right humor along with his inimitable welcoming smile. We experienced much of this atmosphere at the Fechner Days. I also believe it was largely due to his efforts that the Fechner Days did not degenerate into vanity but remained one of the very few academic meetings which facilitated a personal exchange of thoughts from an equal stance in an accepting atmosphere. We will miss his constant attentiveness and support, his refreshing contributions and scientific impulses.
Text: Fritz Müller
To sign a Guest Book or express condolences you may go to: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/gazettenet/obituary.aspx?pid=186047240
Ragnar Steingrimsson, UCI IMBS associate project scientist, dies at 50
Ragnar Steingrimsson, associate project scientist in the Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences at University of California at Irvine, passed away in his sleep on May 22. He was 50.
Steingrimsson received his Ph.D. in cognitive sciences from UCI in 2002 and went on to complete postdoctoral work on the Irvine campus and at New York University before starting work full time at UCI’s Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences as an assistant project scientist. Alongside renowned cognitive scientists Duncan Luce and Louis Narens, Steingrimsson pursued research on subjective evaluation of sensory intensities – how people understand loudness, brightness, pain and other senses. At the time of his death, he was working to provide scientific evidence for a comprehensive theory of Luce’s that explained and integrated judgments of intensity within and across sensory domains.
“As a graduate student in cognitive sciences, Ragnar did his doctoral dissertation under the guidance of Duncan,” says Louis Narens, cognitive sciences professor. “Duncan developed new mathematical techniques to study how people understand and experience senses – and Ragnar developed experimental techniques to test Duncan’s theories. Together, they published many papers in top psychology journals and developed important new methodologies for conducting psychophysical research.”
Among them: Psychological Review, Journal of Mathematical Psychology, Journal of American Psychology, and Attention, Perception & Psychophysics.
Steingrimsson also studied under cognitive sciences professors David Laberge and Jean-Claude Falmagne where he focused on attention and psychophysics and knowledge spaces, respectively. Throughout his postdoctoral positions at UCI, his research was continuously funded by the National Science Foundation and Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
Steingrimsson was an avid runner and a native of Iceland. He earned a certificate in French language at the University of Paris, Sorbonne in 1989, and then headed to the University of Copenhagen, Denmark where he earned his bachelor’s in film and communication in 1991 and his bachelor’s in computer science in 1992. He came to Chapman University in Orange, California where he earned an MFA in 1994 and his master’s in English in 1995. He then joined the UCI Department of Cognitive Sciences graduate program, earning his master’s in 1998 and his Ph.D. in 2002.
During his 22-year association with UCI, Steingrimsson also worked remotely as a senior research scientist for the Northwest Evaluation Association (2013-16), an adjunct professor of psychology for New York University (2004-05), and a research scientist at Ohio State University (2017).
Text provided by Kimberly A. Jameson
The 33rd annual meeting of the international society for Psychophysics was held in Fukuoka, Japan, 22-26 October 2017.
See more information at the official website.
Diana Kornbrot, University of Hertfordshire
Gene Galanter, an early and enthusiastic member of ISP, has died peacefully after a long and heroic struggle with cancer, during which he never gave up on his scientific projects and promotion of science. He was one of the key modern founders of the cognitive psychology revolution started shortly after WWII.
He fought in WWII, a strong influence on his later life. He earned the French Legion d’Honeur, Bronze Star, Purple Heart, and Croix de Guerre with Palm, and Presidential Unit Citation.
On return from France he graduated with a BA from Swarthmore followed by a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. Collaboration with S. S. Stevens at Harvard produced the enduring Ms. Ratio Scales and Category Scales for a Dozen Perceptual Continua. A fellowship at Stanford led to his influential book Plans and the Structure of Behavior with George Miller and Karl Pribram. Collaboration with Robert Bush and Duncan Luce led to the three-volume Handbook of Mathematical Psychology. Although not easy reading, these led the way in making explicit and testable models of perception and decision-making. He worked at Harvard, University of Pennsylvania and as Chair of the Psychology Department at the University of Washington. His final move was to Columbia University where he founded the Psychophysics Laboratory and was active and innovative in theoretical research, as well as running several US government research projects.
He was an inspiring teacher. His popular undergraduate seminars continued until he was well into his 80s. He created a blueprint for teaching psychology as a science to students in all disciplines. He was a formidable Ph.D. supervisor, as I know well from exceptional personal experience. His students, their students, and their students’ students are scattered across the planet inspiring new generation of cognitive and sensory psychologists. His reach was truly international, including a fruitful year at the University of Hertfordshire inspiring UK psychologists.
Applied work, informed by theory, was of paramount importance to him. He worked for FAA, NASA, NSF, U.S. Navy and U.S. Army and received the NASA Distinguished Scientist Award. He applied theoretical psychology to education as a successful entrepreneur. In the 70s he created schools teaching BASIC on early PCs. Latterly, he founded Children’s Progress Inc., subsequently taken over Northwest Evaluation Association where it continues to positively affect children’s achievement, using the US patented Galanter Educational Evaluation Lattice, co-invented with his daughter Michelle
He was one of the greats of American psychology and will be sorely missed by his many friends and colleagues. His work lives on making a positive contribution to the lives of many people who would not even know his name.
He is survived by: his wife Patricia, daughters, Alicia, Gabrielle and Michelle, and eight grandchildren.
The following PDF is Irina Skotnikova’s PowerPoint presented at Quebec, in which you may find useful information regarding to Fechner Day 2016 in Moscow.
