<p><strong>Short answer</strong><br>
Psychophysics is a multidisciplinary field featuring people with a Physics, Psychology, Medicine and/or Biology background. </p>

<p><strong>Background</strong><br>
OK, here follows a lot of personal account to illustrate where psychophysicists may come from.</p>

<p>Traditionally, psychophysics is a part of <strong>Psychology</strong>. </p>

<p>I do a lot of psychophysics and I'm a <strong>Biologist</strong> by training (MSc), but learned psychophysics during a postdoc. My supervisor teaching me psychophysics was a <strong>physicist</strong> (MSc) who acquired their skills during their PhD (in visual sciences).   </p>

<p>My current supervisor is a physicist by training (MSc), but has done heaps of psychophysics as part of his post-grad <strong>Audiology</strong> training.</p>

<p>Many of my psychophysics colleagues are in fact physicists.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-12-20T09:57:11.200Z
Sounds like you have to be a jack of all trades. Or does this depend on what you look at in your research?
jjack
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-12-20T10:03:20.050Z
@jjack I don;t think you have to be a jack of all trades, it's more that the field is a mixed population of folks ending up doing the same thing.
AliceD
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-12-20T10:15:34.020Z
I am a bit skeptical, because the sequence of scientific fields from physical stimulus to pathologic behavior of cells is quite long. And what if the mind is involved too?
jjack
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-12-20T10:22:24.170Z
Excluding "blunt trauma" and such.
jjack
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-12-20T10:24:13.067Z
Psychophysics is a tool to obtain data. Of course, interpreting it is an entirely different thing :) If you use it in an experimental lab or in a diagnostic hospital setting makes all the difference for sure.
AliceD
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-12-20T09:48:35.743Z
2017-12-20T11:13:10.410Z
2017-12-20T11:13:10.410Z
AliceD
<p>Through necessity. I recently started working in Dr. Sohee Park's lab at Vanderbilt University processing the psychophysiology data generated during the Virtual reality social skills training game for both the patients who have schizophrenia and the control subjects. My personal background is a double major in computer engineering and in neuroscience and I definitely have the experience using Matlab and python/dlang/whatever else to process data and ti write scripts for preprocessing data. That being said, even though I understand how one takes an input signal and filters it and process it by FFT pull out the relevant frequency domain information, there was a lot of learning why the particular methods and constants where used and what each signal and the extracted fearures actually mean. Likewise, the methods for processing the relevant features using machine learning are also new to me. To be good at research you have to be able to constantly learn new skills as you need them to get things done.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-12-21T12:38:12.080Z
I think learning new things is very important in any occupation. I'm just sometimes astonished about how fast I also forget things again.
jjack
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-12-20T23:33:45.273Z
2017-12-20T23:33:45.273Z
Ben Perlin
<p>It is unclear to me how people in <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychophysics" rel="nofollow noreferrer">psychophysics</a> are trained. Are they psychologists, or physicists, or physicians, or biologists, or physiologists? Or can they be any of those?</p>

<p>What if someone doing psychophysics (according to his own accord) is making statements about biological pathology?</p>

<p>Is Psychophysics currently a credible scientific field?</p>

<psychophysics>
How are people working in psychophysics trained?
jjack
# How are people working in psychophysics trained?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2017-12-20)

It is unclear to me how people in [psychophysics](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychophysics) are trained. Are they psychologists, or physicists, or physicians, or biologists, or physiologists? Or can they be any of those?

What if someone doing psychophysics (according to his own accord) is making statements about biological pathology?

Is Psychophysics currently a credible scientific field?

**Tags:** psychophysics


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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2017-12-20. Score: 3 | Accepted answer

**Short answer**  
Psychophysics is a multidisciplinary field featuring people with a Physics, Psychology, Medicine and/or Biology background.

**Background**  
OK, here follows a lot of personal account to illustrate where psychophysicists may come from.

Traditionally, psychophysics is a part of **Psychology**.

I do a lot of psychophysics and I'm a **Biologist** by training (MSc), but learned psychophysics during a postdoc. My supervisor teaching me psychophysics was a **physicist** (MSc) who acquired their skills during their PhD (in visual sciences).

My current supervisor is a physicist by training (MSc), but has done heaps of psychophysics as part of his post-grad **Audiology** training.

Many of my psychophysics colleagues are in fact physicists.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Sounds like you have to be a jack of all trades. Or does this depend on what you look at in your research?  
> **username_1**: @username_0 I don;t think you have to be a jack of all trades, it's more that the field is a mixed population of folks ending up doing the same thing.  
> **username_0**: I am a bit skeptical, because the sequence of scientific fields from physical stimulus to pathologic behavior of cells is quite long. And what if the mind is involved too?  
> **username_0**: Excluding "blunt trauma" and such.  
> **username_1**: Psychophysics is a tool to obtain data. Of course, interpreting it is an entirely different thing :) If you use it in an experimental lab or in a diagnostic hospital setting makes all the difference for sure.  

---

### Answer by username_2 on 2017-12-20. Score: 3

Through necessity. I recently started working in Dr. Sohee Park's lab at Vanderbilt University processing the psychophysiology data generated during the Virtual reality social skills training game for both the patients who have schizophrenia and the control subjects. My personal background is a double major in computer engineering and in neuroscience and I definitely have the experience using Matlab and python/dlang/whatever else to process data and ti write scripts for preprocessing data. That being said, even though I understand how one takes an input signal and filters it and process it by FFT pull out the relevant frequency domain information, there was a lot of learning why the particular methods and constants where used and what each signal and the extracted fearures actually mean. Likewise, the methods for processing the relevant features using machine learning are also new to me. To be good at research you have to be able to constantly learn new skills as you need them to get things done.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: I think learning new things is very important in any occupation. I'm just sometimes astonished about how fast I also forget things again.  

---

