The Psychonomic Society is one of the primary societies for general scientific experimental psychology

Experimental psychology

Experimental psychology is a methodological approach, rather than a subject, and encompasses varied fields within psychology. Experimental psychologists have traditionally conducted research, published articles, and taught classes on neuroscience, developmental psychology, sensation, perception,...

 in the United States. Although open to all areas of experimental psychology, its members typically study areas related to cognitive psychology

Cognitive psychology

Cognitive psychology is a subdiscipline of psychology exploring internal mental processes.It is the study of how people perceive, remember, think, speak, and solve problems.Cognitive psychology differs from previous psychological approaches in two key ways....

, such as learning, memory, attention, motivation, perception, categorization, decision making, and psycholinguistics. Its name is taken from the word psychonomics

Psychonomics

Psychonomics describes an approach to psychology that aims at discovering the laws that govern the workings of the mind . The field is directly related to experimental psychology. The word is used most prominently by the Psychonomic Society, a society of experimental psychologists in the United...

, meaning "the science of the laws of the mind".

Membership

The society includes about 2500 members, including associate members. Full and associate members hold Ph.D. or equivalent degrees in their field, and full members must have published significant research other than their doctoral dissertation.

History

The Psychonomic Society was formed in 1959 out of a "general unhappiness with the directions being taken by the American Psychological Association

American Psychological Association

The American Psychological Association is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States. It is the world's largest association of psychologists with around 154,000 members including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. The APA...

" (Dewsbury & Bolles, 1995). This unhappiness stemmed in part from the focus that the APA had on clinical psychology

Clinical psychology

Clinical psychology is an integration of science, theory and clinical knowledge for the purpose of understanding, preventing, and relieving psychologically-based distress or dysfunction and to promote subjective well-being and personal development...

 and its practitioners. (This same sentiment later led to the formation of the American Psychological Society, another research-based psychological organization with a broader focus than the Psychonomic Society. The American Psychological Society is now called the Association for Psychological Science.)

Its organizing committee included: Wilfred J. Brogden, William K. Estes, Frank Geldard, Clance H. Graham, Lloyd G. Humphreys, Clifford T. Morgan, William D. Neff, Kenneth W. Spence, Stanley Smith Stevens

Stanley Smith Stevens

Stanley Smith Stevens was an American psychologist who founded Harvard's Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory and is credited with the introduction of Stevens' power law. Stevens authored a milestone textbook, the 1400+ page "Handbook of Experimental Psychology" . He was also one of the founding organizers...

, Benton J. Underwood, and William S. Verplanck.

Meetings

The Psychonomic Society convenes every year in the fall, usually November. Normally, around 1500 people attend, with 700-800 papers and posters presented.

The first meeting was held at the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

 in 1960, in conjunction with the American Psychological Association

American Psychological Association

The American Psychological Association is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States. It is the world's largest association of psychologists with around 154,000 members including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. The APA...

 meeting. Many of the meetings of the society have occurred in Chicago (in the 1960s) and St. Louis (in the 1970s). In recent years, the meeting has moved between major convention cities. Starting in 2001, the meeting instituted a keynote address honoring distinguished members.

Summary of Psychonomic Meetings

Year	Meeting	Location	Date	Keynote Speaker
1960	1st	Chicago, Illinois	Sept. 1-3	-
1961	2nd			-
1962	3rd			-
1963	4th	Chicago, Illinois		-
1964	5th			-
1965	6th	Chicago, Illinois		-
1966	7th	Chicago, Illinois		-
1967	8th			-
1968	9th	St. Louis, MO		-
1969	10th	St. Louis, MO		-
1970	11th	San Antonio, Texas		-
1971	12th	St. Louis, MO		-
1972	13th	St. Louis, MO		-
1973	14th	St. Louis, MO	November 1-3	C.T. Morgan (S. S. Stevens Memorial Lecture)
1974	15th	Boston, MA		-
1975	16th	Denver, Colorado		-
1976	17th	St. Louis, Missouri		-
1977	18th	Washington, D.C.		-
1978	19th	San Antonio, Texas		-
1979	20th	Phoenix, Arizona		-
1980	21st	St. Louis, Missouri		-
1981	22nd	Philadelphia, PA		-
1982	23rd	Minneapolis, Minnesota		-
1983	24th	San Diego, CA		-
1984	25th	San Antonio, Texas	November 8-10	-
1985	26th	Boston, MA		-
1986	27th	New Orleans, Louisiana		-
1987	28th	Seattle, Washington	November 6-8	-
1988	29th	Chicago, Illinois	November 10-12	-
1989	30th	Atlanta, Georgia		-
1990	31st	New Orleans, Louisiana		-
1991	32nd	San Francisco, CA	November 22-24	-
1992	33rd	St. Louis, Missouri	November 13-15	-
1993	34th	Washington, D.C.	November 5-7	-
1994	35th	St. Louis, Missouri	November 11-13	-
1995	36th	Los Angeles, California	November 10-12	-
1996	37th	Chicago, Illinois	October 31-November 3	-
1997	38th	Philadelphia, PA	November 20-23	-
1998	39th	Dallas, Texas	November 19-22	-
1999	40th	Los Angeles, California	November 18-21	-
2000	41st	New Orleans, Louisiana	November 16-19	-
2001	42nd	Orlando, Florida	November 15-18	William K. Estes William Estes William Estes may refer to:*William Kaye Estes , American scientist*William Lee Estes , U.S. federal judge...
2002	43rd	Kansas City, Missouri	November 21-24	Roger Shepard Roger Shepard Roger Newland Shepard is a cognitive scientist and author of Toward a Universal Law of Generalization for Psychological Science. He is seen as a father of research on spatial relations....
2003	44th	Vancouver, B.C., Canada	November 6-9	Gordon Bower
2004	45th	Minneapolis, Minnesota	November 18-21	Anne Treisman Anne Treisman Anne Marie Treisman FRS is a psychologist currently at Princeton University's Department of Psychology. She researches visual attention, object perception, and memory. One of her most influential ideas is the feature integration theory of attention, first published with G. Gelade in 1980...
2005	46th	Toronto, ON, Canada	November 10-13	Michael I. Posner
2006	47th	Houston, TX	November 16-19	Mary C. Potter
2007	48th	Long Beach, CA	November 15-18	Marcia Johnson
2008	49th	Chicago, IL	November 13-16	Daniel Kahneman Daniel Kahneman Daniel Kahneman is an Israeli-American psychologist and Nobel laureate. He is notable for his work on the psychology of judgment and decision-making, behavioral economics and hedonic psychology....
2009	50th	Boston, MA	November 19-22	Henry L. Roediger III Henry L. Roediger III Henry L. "Roddy" Roediger III , is James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Psychology at Washington University in St. Louis. He is a pioneer and an internationally-renowned expert in the study of human memory processes...
2010	51st	St. Louis, MO	November 18-21	Robert A. Bjork Robert A. Bjork Robert Allen Bjork is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research focuses on human learning and memory and on the implications of the science of learning for instruction and training...

Journals

The Psychonomic Society publishes six journals:

• Learning & Behavior (formerly Animal Learning & Behavior)
• Behavior Research Methods
• Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience
• Memory & Cognition
• Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics
• Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

Beginning with the 37th Annual meeting, abstracts of the society's annual meeting are published in "Abstracts of the Psychonomic Society", starting with Volume 1 (in 1996), and numbered consecutively.