Franciscus Cornelis Donders

Franciscus (Franz) Cornelius Donders FRS FRSE (27 May 1818 – 24 March 1889) was a Dutch ophthalmologist. During his career, he was a professor of physiology in Utrecht, and was internationally regarded as an authority on eye diseases, directing the Netherlands Hospital for Eye Patients. Along with Graefe and Helmholtz, he was one of the primary founders of scientific ophthalmology.

Life

He was born in Tilburg, the son of Jan Franz Donders and Agnes Elizabeth Hegh. He was educated at Duizel School and seminaries in both Tilburg and Boxmeer.

By the age of seventeen, Franciscus Donders had started studying medicine in the School of Military in Utrecht. It was here that he discovered his passion for experimental study, specifically in the field of chemistry. By the age of twenty-two he entered the junior military in order to become a surgeon
For several years, the young Donders studied at the Royal Dutch Hospital for Military Medicine in Utrecht, then earning his M.D. in 1840 from the University of Leiden. Following a stint as a medical officer in the Hague, in 1842 he was appointed as a lecturer in physiology and anatomy at the Utrecht military medical school. Because of his accomplishments in his studies, he made good connections that would allow for him to study his own scientific work. Soon after doing that he became a Professor for Anatomy and Physiology in 1847 at Utrecht University. In 1847, he became an associate professor at Utrecht University and, in 1862, attained a full professorship in physiology. In 1847, he became correspondent of the Royal Institute of the Netherlands, when that became the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences; in 1851, he joined as member. Donders knew that textbook knowledge had a lot to offer the field of cognition, but he also knew that it would be enhanced and hold more validity if experiments were involved. Donders was the first to discover that a lot of time is needed for an abstract mental process to occur.

He is known for his work and research of eye disease and was among the first practitioners of the ophthalmoscope. He is credited with invention of an impression tonometer (1862), and for introduction of prismatic and cylindrical lenses for treatment of astigmatism (1860).

Donders also was the first to use differences in human reaction time to infer differences in cognitive processing. He tested both simple reaction time and choice reaction time, finding that simple reaction was faster. This concept is now one of the central tenets of cognitive psychology while mental chronometry is not a topic in itself, it is one of the most common tools used for making inferences about processes such as learning, memory, and attention.
Using reaction time, Donders constructed what is known as reaction time, and three distinct ways to analyze it. The common version was task A (simple). When Donders’s conducted task A, he stimulated the participant’s foot in order to measure the fastest hand reaction. Participants were made known ahead of time that they would be measuring how fast the response of their hand was (which enabled them to better sense the stimulation). Donder’s task B (choice) consisted of stimulation in the right hand and measuring the response of the right foot. This task had the same goals as task A; On top of that the subject’s ability to discriminate the stimulus and point out the stimulus was also measured and requires the intervention of a response decision. The third distinct task was known as the C task (Go/No-go task) To analyze this task Donder stimulated the both feet of participants. Participants were asked to respond with their right hand when they felt stimulation in the right foot, but not to do the same with the left side. This task was also designed to measure the participants ability to detect stimuli and offer the requested response. Donders’s task C cannot be performed without intervention of stimulus discrimination occurring within the sensory and motor process. He represents the durations of these processes labeling them as a-, b- and c- methods (example a/-a = eat/don’t eat) In order to utilize these methods Donders used the speech repetition task Different patterns were used for different methods. The pattern of reaction time is aHerman Snellen