Andries Frans Sanders (born 4 April 1933) is a Dutch psychologist. In the 1980s he was professor at RWTH Aachen Technical University and served as director of its Institut für Psychologie. Sanders was professor of psychology at the

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam The Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (abbreviated as ''VU Amsterdam'' or simply ''VU'' when in context) is a public research university in Amsterdam, Netherlands, being founded in 1880. The VU Amsterdam is one of two large, publicly funded research ...

between 1989 and 1998.

Life

Sanders was born on 4 April 1933 in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

. In 1957 Sanders started working at the Institute for Perception RVO- TNO (Dutch: ''Instituut voor Zintuigfysiologie'') and became the first psychologist employed there. He first worked under supervision of John van de Geer, but received his PhD with honors in 1963 at

Utrecht University Utrecht University (UU; nl, Universiteit Utrecht, formerly ''Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht'') is a public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established , it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. In 2018, it had an enrollme ...

under supervision of Johannes Linschoten. In 1966 he organised and convened a meeting on attention and performance which would subsequently become a symposium series. In 1968 he was one of the founders of the Dutch association for psychonomy. In the 1980s he worked as professor and director of the Institut für Psychologie of

RWTH Aachen University RWTH Aachen University (), also known as North Rhine-Westphalia Technical University of Aachen, Rhine-Westphalia Technical University of Aachen, Technical University of Aachen, University of Aachen, or ''Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hoch ...

. Sanders was a professor of

cognitive psychology Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of mental processes such as attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, creativity, and reasoning. Cognitive psychology originated in the 1960s in a break from behaviorism, which ...

, psychonomics,

experimental psychology Experimental psychology refers to work done by those who apply experimental methods to psychological study and the underlying processes. Experimental psychologists employ human participants and animal subjects to study a great many topics, in ...

and

theoretical psychology Theoretical psychology is concerned with theoretical and philosophical aspects of psychology. It is an Interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary field with a wide scope of study. It focuses on combining and incorporating existing and developing theorie ...

at the

between 1989 and 1998. At the Vrije Universiteit he also served as dean of the faculty of social sciences. Sanders was elected a member of the

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences ( nl, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, abbreviated: KNAW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands. The academy is housed ...

in 1996. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the

Vrije Universiteit Brussel The Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) () is a Dutch and English-speaking research university located in Brussels, Belgium.The Vrije Universiteit Brussel is one of the five universities officially recognised by the Flemish Community, Flemish gov ...

Research

Sanders' published research is characterised by a close relationship between basic and applied ergonomic questions. This is already evident from his early work on the effect of loud noise on performance and on his dissertation work on orientation in the functional visual field. Another research theme was the analysis of choice reactions, inspired by the Additive Factors Method developed by

Saul Sternberg Saul Sternberg is a Professor Emeritus of Psychology and former Paul C. Williams Term Professor (1993–1998) at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a pioneer in the field of cognitive psychology in the development of experimental techniques ...

in the 1960s. In this work application was evident in his studies on the effects of psychopharma and sleep deprivation on choice reaction processes; this led to his most quoted publication "Towards a model of stress and Human performance". Sanders also worked on short-term memory, basic as well as applied in situations where people are required to briefly remember a sequence of letters or digits. In 1998 he published "Elements of Human performance" a review of the literature of his main interests in which, again, the cohesion between basic and applied research was a main theme.Erlbaum publisher, Mawhaw NJ 1998

References

1933 births Living people Dutch psychologists Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Academic staff of RWTH Aachen University Scientists from Amsterdam Academic staff of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam {{Netherlands-scientist-stub