The Society for Psychophysiological Research is an international scientific organization with over 800 members worldwide. The society is composed of scientists whose research is focused on the study of the interrelationships between the physiological and psychological aspects of behavior. Psychophysiology “The body is the medium of experience and the instrument of action. Through its actions we shape and organize our experiences and distinguish our perceptions of the outside world from sensations that arise within the body itself.” (Jonathan Miller, The Body in Question, 1978) Like anatomy and physiology, psychophysiology is a branch of science interested in bodily systems. However, anatomy is primarily concerned with body structures and relationships amongst structures, and physiology is primarily interested in the function of these structures or systems—or with how different parts of the body work. Psychophysiological research covers both of these concerns, but is also interested in connecting anatomy and physiology with psychological phenomena. In other words, psychophysiological research can consist of the study of social, psychological, and/or behavioral phenomena as they are reflected in the body. A great deal of psychophysiological research has focused on the physiological instantiation of emotion, but with increased access to measures of the central nervous system, psychophysiological research has also examined cognitive processes. Psychophysiological methods Skin conductance (level and response) Cardiac measures (heart rate, heart rate variability, contractility, both sympathetic nervous system and parasympathetic nervous system measures, blood pressure, plethysmography) Oculomotor and pupilometric measures Electromyographic activity Respiration Gastrointestinal activity Penile and vaginal plethysmography Electroencephalography Event-related potentials (ERP) Event-related frequency changes Hormonal and endocrinological measures Immune function Functional neuroimaging Positron emission tomography Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) Optical imaging Magnetoencephalography (MEG) History As late as the 1950s, the field of psychophysiology was not a fully unified discipline. Psychophysiologists published in multiple non-specialist journals and were often not abreast of their colleagues’ work. However, in 1955, the influential early psychophysiologist Albert F. Ax (1913-1994) began circulating The Psychophysiology Newsletter, a slight collection of methodological observations and bibliographies for various psychophysiological methods. The first volume was free to subscribers, and for several years the newsletter circulated to fewer than 50 members. Nonetheless, his work on the newsletter allowed Ax to organize and open communication amongst psychophysiologists from across North America. Through his work, the discipline and field of psychophysiology began to cohere. Scientists were better able to communicate not only their scientific findings, but also methodological advances they’d made in what