The Japanese Society for Physiological Psychology and Psychophysiology was founded in 1983 with a hope to promote the physiological research in a psychological field in Japan. Since then, the society has held an annual conference with lectures, symposia, and reports. And nearly 3,500 studies were reported. On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the society, the present paper was intended to look back upon its past, describing (a) process of foundation of the society, (b) its organization and committees , (c) lectures and symposia at annual conferences, (d) original papers, reviews, and special issues published in the society journal, and (e) some characteristics of studies reported at annual meetings of the past 30 years. From these analyses, studies on EEG and ERPs, sleep, lie-detection, and psychophysiological functions of the disabled were found as main topics. Approaches from physiological psychology and psychophysiology to animal and social studies were suggested as future problems.

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The research I have undertaken in the physiological psychology of mentally retarded children has been based on an analysis of their basic EEG rhythms. In the days when I began my research, the characteristics of the EEGs of mentally retarded children were identified as follows; (a) slowing of α wave (b) distinctive emergence of θ wave (c) emergence of irregular and unstable waves (d) noticeable individual differencesI studied normal and mentally retarded children’s EEGs utilizing both cross-sectional studies and longitudinal studies, and suggested a schema of EEG development, which I presented both in Japan and abroad. While α waves frequency continuously increases as children grow up, this schema shows that there is a change in particular components and each of them has a generator which produces these particular components. Therefore I especially tried to clarify the differences of characteristics between θ and α waves. I suggested that the θ wave’s generator is located much deeper in from the scalp than α wave’s, because of the alternation of the EEG power. I also clarified the difference of both particular components in terms of the temporal correlation of their emergence, response to optical stimulus and the relation between their physical locations. I would suggest that all characteristics of mentally retarded children’s EEGs are connected to the development of the EEG. In conclusion, I assume that α wave component has an inhibitive function in relation to components of low-frequency.

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Here, I reviewed historical origin of physiological psychology. The origin of physiological psychology is puneuma study that means materialistic study of mind. But materialistic or Newtonian study of mind is not direct ancestor of the present physiological psychology. I reviewed physiological psychology of Wundt, James, Watson, Skinner and Pavlov and then discussed relationship between the neuroanatomy and psychology. I also commented on recent functional neuroimaging and neuro-decoding. “Mind” is our verbal description of state of our brain and the mind is strongly supported by human society through inter-subjective agreement. Finally, I propose three measurement of brain function, namely self-observation, behavioral measurement, and direct measurement of the brain activity.

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In this article, three experimental studies representing topics in Sleep Psychology conducted in the last three decades, outlined below are reviewed. 1. Verifying dream theory. The “activation-synthesis hypothesis” proposed by Hobson and McCarley (1977) and the “sensory image-free association hypothesis” proposed by Okuma (1992) were verified using event related potentials (ERP) time locked to the onset and offset of rapid eye movements (REM) during REM sleep. 2. Verifying sleep-dependent improvement of memory. A newly acquired visuomotor skill improved after one night of sleep. This sleep–dependent improvement in visuomotor performance was verified and it was established that the memory enhancement was closely related with sleep spindle activity. 3. Development of prophylactic napping. Often, there is increased sleepiness during the mid-afternoon and it is a cause of industrial and traffic accidents. A short nap of less than 20 minutes is proposed as an effective counter measure to prevent midafternoon sleepiness.

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The author is one of the first researchers on averaged evoked potentials (AEP) and event related potentials (ERP) in Japanese psychological field. He aimed to apply AEP and ERP in industrial settings. There were many technical problems to measure EEG, AEP and ERP at practical fields. The author and colleagues developed new technologies to measure those brain potentials at everyday life. The author found a brain potentials called “eye fixation related potential; EFRP”. EFRP is associated with offset of saccadic eye movements; i.e. onset of eye fixation. EFRP is applicable as an index of attention at eye moving situations. The author reviewed research and development of detection of AEP, ERP and EFRP, and findings on those potentials in his laboratories for about 45 years.

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