R. Duncan Luce

Brief Biography

Robert Duncan Luce was a renowned figure in mathematical psychology whose work in operations research included decision theory and choice behavior. Luce studied Aeronautical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology prior to pursuing mathematics at the graduate level. He received his PhD under the super of Irvin S. Cohen in 1950.  

For his first three postdoctoral years, Luce co-directed the Group Networks Laboratory at MIT. In 1953, he was appointed Managing Director of the Behavioral Models Project at Columbia University, where he concurrently taught courses on mathematical statistics and sociology as an assistant professor. At Columbia, he worked with influential decision scientist Howard Raiffa. The pair co-authoredGames and Decisions: Introduction and Critical Survey(1957), the publication that launched their careers into the forefront of decision analysis. Luce left Columbia for Harvard, though shortly afterward joined the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Psychology.

During this period, Luce continued his work in mathematical psychology, publishing three more books between 1959 and 1963. Handbook of Mathematical Psychology (1963), co-edited with Robert R. Bush and Eugene Galaner, consisted of twenty-one essays that surveyed mathematical thinking in five roughly-delineated areas of psychology: the psychophysics of perception, discrimination and choice, stochastic learning theory, mathematical methods, psycholinguistics, and social psychology. Luce left UPenn to accept a visiting position at the Institute for Advanced Study prior to joining the faculty of Social Science at the University of California, Irvine in 1972. Two years earlier, the American Psychological Association honored him with the APA Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions.

In probability theory, Luce formulated the so-called Luce’s choice axiom, in his 1959 Individual Choice Behavior: A Theoretical Analysis. The axiom formalized the principle that additional options should not affect the probability of selecting one item over another. The publication effectively introduced graph-theoretic models into the social sciences and coined the term “clique” for a complete subgraph in graph theory.

From 1976 to 2000, Luce held a variety of positions with professional service organizations. He was President of both the Society of Mathematical Psychology (1979) and of the Federation of Behavioral, Psychological, and Cognitive Sciences (1988-1991). He also chaired the Psychology Sections of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Academy of Sciences, into which he was elected in 1972. In 2003, he was awarded the Frank P. Ramsey Medal by the Decision Analysis Society of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences for career contributions to decision analysis.

Luce returned to Harvard as the Alfred North Whitehead Professor of Cognitive Science. From 1981 to 1984, he chaired the university’s Department of Psychology and Social Relations. Luce retired from Harvard in 1988 but moved back to Irvine, where he continued his career as a Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Director of the Irvine Research Unit in Mathematical Behavioral Science. At eighty-seven years old, he passed away after a brief illness.

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Wikipedia Entry for R. Duncan Luce