1991 William James Fellow Award

Emanuel Donchin

University of South Florida

Through his published work, the students he has trained, and the conferences that he has organized, Emanuel Donchin has profoundly influenced the emergence of cognitive psychophysiology as a subdiscipline of cognitive psychology. His research has helped to define the paradigm of cognitive psychophysiology, in which psychophysiological measures, particularly those of the event-related brain potential, are used to examine the workings of the mind. In a series of elegant studies, extending from the late 1960s to the present, he and his colleagues have identified distinct brain processes related to memory, preparation, decision-making, and other aspects of human information processing. Donchin and his colleagues have also contributed to the technical aspects of cognitive psychophysiology by devising numerous analytic techniques that enable the detection and measurement of different brain potential components.

Because of these scholarly achievements and his contributions to the development of psychology, he is recognized as a leader in psychological science.