James Townsend

James Tarlton Townsend is a Distinguished Rudy Professor of Psychology at Indiana University, Bloomington. He is known for his work in mathematical psychology, particularly in distinguishing parallel and serial processing and for models of perception.

Education and career Townsend received an A.B. in Psychology from Fresno State College in 1961. In 1989, Townsend became a Rudy Professor in the Department of Psychology at Indiana University. Townsend became a Distinguished Professor in 2008.

Research Townsend's major theoretical contributions include Systems Factorial Technology, General Recognition Theory and Decision field theory.

Townsend coauthored an influential book on modeling in psychology with F. Gregory Ashby, The Stochastic Modeling of Elementary Psychological Processes. He has also edited multiple volumes on mathematical psychology.

In 1985 and again in 2004, Townsend served as the president of the Society for Mathematical Psychology and has more recently served as the president of the Configural Processing Consortium. He served as editor of the Journal of Mathematical Psychology from 1985 to 1989.

Awards Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Mathematical Psychology, 2020 Norman Anderson Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Experimental Psychologists, 2007 Fellow of the American Psychological Association, 2004 Fellow of the American Psychological Society, 1998