Julian Edward Hochberg (July 10, 1923 – May 22, 2022) was an American psychology researcher and the Centennial Professor Emeritus of Psychology at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. Much of Hochberg's research involved

visual perception Visual perception is the ability to interpret the surrounding environment through photopic vision (daytime vision), color vision, scotopic vision (night vision), and mesopic vision (twilight vision), using light in the visible spectrum reflecte ...

. Before coming to Columbia, Hochberg taught at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

and

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

. He was a member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

Biography

Hochberg was born on July 10, 1923. A native of New York City, he attended

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a public university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, Cit ...

and graduated in 1945 with an undergraduate degree in

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

. At City College, Hochberg was influenced by studying perception with psychologist

Gardner Murphy Gardner Murphy (July 8, 1895 – March 18, 1979) was an American psychologist who specialized in social and personality psychology and parapsychology.Martin Seymour-Smith, Andrew C. Kimmens. (1996). ''World Authors, 1900-1950, Volume 3''. H.W. Wi ...

. He received a Ph.D. in psychology from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. At Berkeley, he was taught by influential figures like

Edward Tolman Edward Chace Tolman (April 14, 1886 – November 19, 1959) was an American psychologist and a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. Through Tolman's theories and works, he founded what is now a branch of psychology kno ...

Egon Brunswik Egon Brunswik Edler von Korompa (18 March 1903, Budapest7 July 1955, Berkeley, California) was a psychologist who made contributions to functionalism and the history of psychology. Life Early life and education Brunswik was born in Budapest, Hu ...

, and

Gordon Lynn Walls Gordon Lynn Walls (April 4, 1905 – August 22, 1962) was an American professor of physiological optics and optometry at the University of California, Berkeley Biography Walls started his education at Boston English High School. He earned his B ...

. After graduate school, Hochberg became an instructor at Cornell University and was promoted to full professor by 1960. He was a professor at New York University between 1965 and 1969 before moving to Columbia University, where he finished his teaching career.

Research

In the 1950s, Hochberg led a study that examined how college students judged qualities like cuteness and intelligence based on physical features. The study, which was funded by the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...

and the

Office of Naval Research The Office of Naval Research (ONR) is an organization within the United States Department of the Navy responsible for the science and technology programs of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. Established by Congress in 1946, its mission is to plan ...

, found that college students studied in the same year showed consistency in judging facial expressions, but students from a given year tended not to agree with students studied in other years. This suggested that over time there are trends in judging people. Hochberg found that there was an exception to the discrepancies seen in students from different years: judgments of the cuteness of babies tended to remain stable over time.

Personal life

Hochberg died on May 22, 2022, at the age of 98.

Honors and awards

Hochberg received the

APA Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Psychology The APA Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Psychology is an award of the American Psychological Association that "honors psychologists who have made distinguished theoretical or empirical contributions to basic research in psychol ...

from the

American Psychological Association The American Psychological Association (APA) is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States, with over 133,000 members, including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students. It ha ...

. He was elected to the

in 1980. In 2000, he received the Howard Crosby Warren Medal from the

Society of Experimental Psychologists The Society of Experimental Psychologists (SEP), originally called the Society of Experimentalists, is an academic society for experimental psychologists. It was founded by Edward Bradford Titchener in 1904 to be an ongoing workshop in which memb ...

Biography

Research

Personal life

Honors and awards

References

Further reading