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Psychonomic Bulletin & Review (commonly referenced as psychonomic bulletin and review, and occasionally searched as psychonomics bulletin and review) is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering human cognitive psychology and experimental cognitive science. Published bimonthly by Springer Nature in official partnership with the Psychonomic Society, the journal serves as a primary international outlet for theoretical syntheses, literature reviews, and concise empirical investigations that advance cognitive theory.
What it is
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review was founded in March 1994 by the Psychonomic Society, succeeding its earlier title, the Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society (published from 1973 to 1993). Operating editorially within the United States and produced by Springer Science+Business Media (Springer Nature), the journal issues six bimonthly numbers per annual volume.
Bibliographically, the publication is registered under Print ISSN 1069-9384 and Electronic ISSN 1531-5320. In biomedical databases, it is cataloged under National Library of Medicine identifier NLM ID 9502924 and indexed under the Medline title abbreviation Psychon Bull Rev. Serial issues are assigned digital object identifiers (DOIs) via Crossref and archived for long-term preservation across Portico, CLOCKSS, and LOCKSS.
Unlike clinical or specialty publications—such as the American Psychological Association journal examined in our guide on Psychology of Addictive Behaviors—Psychonomic Bulletin & Review focuses on general cognitive architecture, normative behavioral mechanisms, and foundational experimental methodology.
Who runs it and what it covers
The journal is governed by the Psychonomic Society, an international association of experimental psychologists established in 1959. Editorial decisions are overseen by an appointed Editor-in-Chief supported by Associate Editors and an international editorial board of active cognitive researchers. Commercial printing, digital hosting, and subscription distribution are managed by Springer Nature.
The journal covers empirical and theoretical research across human cognitive psychology. Core topical areas include:
- Attention and perception: Psychophysics, visual and auditory attention, perceptual grouping, and spatial processing.
- Learning and memory: Working memory capacity, episodic recall, semantic networks, skill acquisition, and memory consolidation.
- Language and psycholinguistics: Lexical access, sentence parsing, discourse comprehension, and bilingual processing.
- Reasoning and decision-making: Heuristics, probabilistic inference, deductive logic, judgment, and choice architecture.
- Cognitive control: Task switching, inhibition, error monitoring, and executive function.
- Social and developmental cognition: Cognitive maturation, lifespan changes, social perception, and comparative cognition.
Submissions are grouped into three primary manuscript categories:
- Theoretical and Review Articles: Analytical papers synthesizing empirical literatures, addressing conceptual disputes, or introducing formal mathematical and computational models.
- Brief Reports: Concentrated empirical articles that communicate important experimental results with immediate theoretical significance.
- Registered Reports: Empirical protocols where research hypotheses and analytical plans undergo peer review before data collection, conducted either via direct submission or through the journal’s partnership with Peer Community in Registered Reports (PCI RR).
Authors must provide explicit Data Availability Statements and report demographic profiles for experimental participants to support reproducibility.
How to search or use it
Researchers and authors interact with the journal through SpringerLink or the Psychonomic Society website. Follow these steps to navigate, search, or submit:
- Access the journal homepage: Open the official journal profile on SpringerLink (
link.springer.com/journal/13423) or navigate via the Psychonomic Society publications catalog (psychonomic.org). - Search content: Use the “Search this journal” field on the homepage to query key constructs, author names, or methodologies across all indexed volumes from 1994 onward.
- Filter results: Refine search hits using the left-hand faceted filters to select content types (“Article”, “Review Article”, or “Brief Report”) and publication dates.
- Authenticate access: Select “Log in via institution” in the top navigation to authenticate through Shibboleth or OpenAthens institutional licensing, or sign in with Psychonomic Society member credentials.
- Check article licensing: Review the license label on the article page to verify whether an item is published as open access (typically Creative Commons CC BY) or requires subscription rights.
- Share content: Use the “Share article” option to generate a Springer SharedIt link, granting non-subscribers view-only full-text access.
- Submit manuscripts: Authors select “Submit manuscript” from the journal menu to access the Aries Editorial Manager system. Submissions require anonymized files for double-anonymized peer review, compliance with APA style, and disclosure statements.
Strengths and limits
Assessing the journal involves weighing its scientific strengths against access boundaries.
Strengths:
- Double-anonymized review: Masking both reviewer and author identities helps mitigate institutional and personal prestige biases during evaluation.
- Preregistration integration: Active support for Registered Reports reduces publication bias and file-drawer effects for null findings.
- Broad indexing: Comprehensive discovery coverage across Medline/PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, Crossref, and Google Scholar.
- Rapid empirical format: The Brief Reports category offers an accelerated outlet for concise, high-impact empirical tests.
Limits:
- Hybrid access barriers: As a hybrid journal, articles without paid open access remain behind subscription paywalls.
- High author fees: The optional Springer Open Choice open-access fee is $3,790 USD (€3,090 EUR / £2,590 GBP), creating a hurdle for unfunded researchers.
- Green OA embargo: Non-OA articles are subject to a 12-month embargo period before post-prints can be shared under green open access repositories.
- High selectivity: Submissions lacking broad theoretical impact across cognitive psychology are often declined at editorial triage.
Alternatives
Researchers considering publication or literature sources in cognitive and experimental psychology can evaluate these key alternatives:
| Journal Title | Publisher / Society | Core Scope & Article Formats | Peer Review Structure | Access Model |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Psychonomic Bulletin & Review | Springer Nature / Psychonomic Society | Theoretical reviews, brief empirical reports, and registered reports in cognition | Double-anonymized review | Hybrid (Subscription / $3,790 Open Choice APC) |
| Memory & Cognition | Springer Nature / Psychonomic Society | Full-length empirical investigations of memory, learning, and higher cognitive processes | Double-anonymized review | Hybrid (Subscription / Open Choice option) |
| Cognitive Psychology | Elsevier | Extended empirical and theoretical papers with multi-experiment designs | Single-anonymized review | Hybrid (Subscription / Open access option) |
| Journal of Experimental Psychology: General | American Psychological Association | Broad integrative empirical articles across experimental psychology | Masked (anonymized) review option | Hybrid (Subscription / Open access option) |
| Trends in Cognitive Sciences | Cell Press / Elsevier | Short conceptual reviews, opinion articles, and perspectives in cognitive science | Single-anonymized review | Hybrid (Review and commentary journal) |
FAQ
Is Psychonomic Bulletin & Review a peer-reviewed journal?
Yes. All theoretical reviews, brief empirical reports, and registered reports submitted to the journal undergo rigorous double-anonymized peer review evaluated by domain specialists under the oversight of an Associate Editor.
What formatting style does Psychonomic Bulletin & Review require?
Manuscripts must follow the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA Style), including citation patterns, reference lists, statistical notation, and structured abstracts.
Is Psychonomic Bulletin & Review an open access journal?
No, it is a hybrid journal. Articles are published under subscription access with an optional open-access pathway via Springer Open Choice ($3,790 APC). Non-open-access articles become freely accessible following a 12-month embargo period.
How does Psychonomic Bulletin & Review differ from Memory & Cognition?
While both are Psychonomic Society journals published by Springer, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review prioritizes broad theoretical reviews, brief high-impact experimental reports, and registered reports. In contrast, Memory & Cognition publishes comprehensive, multi-experiment empirical investigations focused primarily on human memory and learning mechanisms.
Sources
- National Library of Medicine (NLM) Catalog: Psychonomic bulletin & review (NLM ID: 9502924). U.S. National Library of Medicine. Accessed 2026-11-09. URL:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/9502924 - ISSN International Centre Portal: Psychonomic bulletin & review (ISSN: 1531-5320 / 1069-9384). Accessed 2026-11-09. URL:
https://portal.issn.org/resource/ISSN/1531-5320 - Crossref Metadata Registry: Psychonomic Bulletin & Review (Serial record 1531-5320). Accessed 2026-11-09. URL:
https://api.crossref.org/journals/1531-5320 - OpenAlex Scholarly Registry: Psychonomic Bulletin & Review Source Record (ID: S77479708). Accessed 2026-11-09. URL:
https://api.openalex.org/sources?filter=issn:1531-5320
