Rediscovering the Past: Gustav Fechner and Signal Detection Theory

The origins of experimental psychology are found in the theory of discrimination created by Gustav Fechner The theory advanced by Fechner was the first theory of mental judgment that applied the ideas of Gaussian error to human discrimination Despite its powerful theoretical and empirical results, the theory vanished Later embellishments, such as the addition of response bias found in signal detection theory, gave such theories new life, but Fechner never received the credit due to the founder of psychological detection theory