20 Facts About Franciscus Donders

Franciscus Cornelius Donders FRS FRSE was a Dutch ophthalmologist.

Franciscus Donders was first educated at Duizel School and seminaries in both Tilburg and Boxmeer.

In 1848, eleven years before Charles Darwin's monumental Origin of Species was published, Franciscus Donders delivered his inaugural lecture titled 'The Harmony of Animal Life, the Revelation of Laws'.

Franciscus Donders knew that textbook knowledge had a lot to offer the field of cognition, but he knew that it would be enhanced and hold more validity if experiments were involved.

Franciscus Donders, being a physiologist, is particularly known for his work and research of eye disease and was among the first practitioners of the ophthalmoscope.

Franciscus Donders is credited with invention of an impression tonometer, and for introduction of prismatic and cylindrical lenses for treatment of astigmatism.

Franciscus Donders was the first to discover that a lot of time is needed for an abstract mental process to occur.

Franciscus Donders was the first to use differences in human reaction time to infer differences in cognitive processing.

Franciscus Donders tested both simple reaction time and choice reaction time, finding that simple reaction was faster.

When Franciscus Donders's conducted task A, he stimulated the participant's foot in order to measure the fastest hand reaction.

Franciscus Donders represents the durations of these processes labeling them as a-, b- and c- methods In order to utilize these methods Donders used the speech repetition task Different patterns were used for different methods.

Franciscus Donders taught that c-a can find the discrimination duration, and that b-c can find the choice duration.

When learning to measure the speed of thought, Franciscus Donders was not keen of using electromagnetism to measure.

Franciscus Donders claimed that as the intensity changed, so would the results.

Franciscus Donders spent a lot of time studying and researching biology and cognition.

Franciscus Donders introduced subjects such as refraction, astigmatism, accommodation, ametropia, hypermetropia, aphakia, presbyopia, convergence, and quint.

Franciscus Donders is responsible for the formula that equates the sharpness of one's vision.

Franciscus Donders taught that the retina uses rays in order to come together.

Franciscus Donders is well recognized in the dental community for naming the "space of Franciscus Donders", the space between the dorsum of the tongue and the hard palate when the mandible is at rest.

Franciscus Donders died in Utrecht at the age of seventy.