Herbart and “Psychological Research on the Strength of a Given Impression”

Herbart in 1812 published an analysis of sensory process formation, using differential equations, and attempted to relate within the same model considerations of upper and lower limits of sensory intensity, and the time course of process evolution within those limits. The analysis he proposed anticipates later psychophysics by at least half a century. It is perhaps the earliest example of a formal nonlinear dynamical treatment in theoretical psychology.