To a young department, the time of its inception was usually hard and difficult but it later turned to be sweet and unforgettable when years and even decades passed by with the processes of progression.
On the year of 2001, concerning about the healthy development of the department, the former chairman, Dr. Chuang-Chen Ma, invited Prof. Shwu-Lih Huang of National Chengchi University to teach several basic courses, including Methods of Experimental Psychology, Sensation and Perception and Cognitive Psychology.
In addition, with the hope that the department could be competitive with other psychology departments, Chairman Ma decided to establish two laboratories, one for psychological experiment and the other for psychological assessment. Prof. Huang was then requested to start the building of this lab. Later, Lecturer Hung-Wei Lee took over Prof. Huang’s tasks and responsibilities to ensure the continuation of the courses and the lab.
Although there were several insufficiencies and obstacles which made slow progresses at first, we finally got funds from the National Science Council and thankful supports from the university. On 2004, the lab opened and started to serve functions of teaching and studying. At the same time, the PI kept a steady pace to recruit lab members, provide training courses, and use and maintain devices.
On 2006, the lab was again luckily earned a great fund by the university and was able to have some advanced instruments for cognitive neuroscience courses and studies, inclusive of NeuroScan SynAmps2 electroencephalogram (EEG) system, SeeingMachines faceLab 4.2 eye-tracker and Ascension Tech. miniBird 3D spatial localization system. About 2010, with some research projects funded by NSC, the Biofeedback 2000 xpert biosignal recording system and Emotiv portable EEG system were added to the list of the lab devices.
Recently, thanks for the T&L Developing Center's support, more hardware and software (e.g., HoloLens, Noitom Neuron mocap, iClone, etc.) with other open source and community version tools (e.g., Python, Unity, Visual Studio, etc.) are embraced by the PI and regarded as the best weapons to make the ACT Laboratory one of the most hi-tech labs of psychology departments here in Taiwan.