Emanuel Donchin (1935–2018)

Emanuel (Manny) Donchin passed away on October 10, 2018, in Tampa, Florida. He is survived by Rina Donchin, his wife of 63 years, his children Ayala and Opher, five grandchildren, and a large scientific family. Manny was a pioneer—a giant in the field of ERPs (compared to evoked potentials, the term ERPs acknowledges the fact that internal or expected but missing stimuli also elicit brain responses). Manny had an immeasurable impact on psychophysiology and experimental psychology, especially through his promotion of ERPs as a central tool in cognitive electrophysiology. Manny similarly played a major and significant role in the development and assessment of recording and analytic procedures for ERP research (e.g., Fabiani, Gratton, Karis, Gratton, Coles, Picton et al., 2000). In addition to decades of innovative and influential theoretical and empirical published works, Manny pioneered the use of multivariate analyses (e.g., Donchin, 1966, 1969 ; Donchin Wicke, Donchin, Smith, Donchin, Cohen, Squires, Wickens, Squires, McCarthy Wickens, Kramer, Vanasse, Fabiani, Karis, Karis, Fabiani, Donchin Wolpaw et al., 2000). Collaborative work with Michael Coles, Gabriele Gratton, and Bill Gehring led to the derivation and/or characterization of other ERP components, including the lateralized readiness potential (Gratton, Coles, Sirevaag, Eriksen, Sellers, Kubler, & Donchin, 2006). Emanuel Donchin will be sorely missed by the cognitive psychophysiology community, for whom he was an anchor and visionary leader. Fortunately for us, his legacy will live on through his broad and deep influence on the field as well as the many young scientists he mentored, who by now include not only his academic children but his academic grandchildren and great-grandchildren.