Liderazgo

Journal of Mathematical Psychology 52 (2008) 269–280

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Journal of Mathematical Psychology
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jmp

Mathematical psychology: Prospects for the 21st century: A guest editorial$
James T. Townsend 1
Indiana University, Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, 1101 E. 10th Street, Bloomington, IN 47405-7007,United States

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The twenty-first century is certainly in progress by now, but hardly well underway. Therefore, I will take that modest elasticity in concept as a frame for this essay. This frame will serve as background for some of my hopes and gripes about contemporary psychology and mathematical psychology’s place therein. It will also act as platform forearnest, if wistful thoughts about what might have (and perhaps can still) aid us in forwarding our agenda and what I see as some of the promising avenues for the future. I loosely structure the essay into a section about mathematical psychology in the context of psychology at large and then a section devoted to prospects within mathematical psychology proper. The essay can perhaps be considered asin a similar spirit, although differing in content, to previous editorial-like reviews of general or specific aspects of mathematical psychology such as [Estes, W. K. (1975). Some targets for mathematical psychology. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 12, 263–282; Falmagne, J. C. (2005). Mathematical psychology: A perspective. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 49, 436–439; Luce, R. D. (1997).Several unresolved conceptual problems of mathematical psychology. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 41, 79–87] that have appeared in this journal. © 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Article history: Received 30 April 2007 Received in revised form 29 April 2008 Available online 18 July 2008 Keywords: Future Mathematical psychology Fields of mathematical psychology History of mathematicalpsychology Psychological science Clinical science and mathematical psychology Neuroscience and mathematical psychology Mathematical psychology and other quantitative fields Computer science and mathematical psychology Physics and mathematical psychology

1. Psychology and mathematical psychology therein 1.1. A glimpse of recent history Psychology is a young science as opposed to a young field$ A word is in order concerning the scope and style of this essay. There are many themes that could be selected for such a piece. The topic I have chosen centers on the health and future of mathematical psychology. It does include a necessarily very succinct history and a number of bordering issues along with some suggestions for remediation and improvement. Due to space limitations, I have hadto limit mention and citations of a plethora of important names outside those of a very few of the pioneers in the field. A vast number of important investigators especially if they’re on the younger side are neglected. In particular, I had to virtually entirely omit the contributions, many overlapping with mathematical psychology, stemming from the field of psychometrics. The same goes for avoluminous set of researches on categorization. I regret and apologize for these necessary omissions. And, though an individual may have performed valuable research in several areas of mathematical psychology, I refrained from making these multiple mentions. I should also mention that I cannot guarantee that all citations within a set of references in the same location in the essay will be homogeneous(e.g., all reviews of their work, all at about the same date, etc.). It was already laborious simply collecting these as they are. I also take license to occasionally mention important names sans specific citation. The style is meant to be informal, even conversational, so some notable individuals receive mention without specific citation. E-mail address: jtownsen@indiana.edu. 1 President of...