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A QUANTITATIVE THEORY OF DECISION BY DORWIN CARTWRIGHT Department of Agriculture, Washington AND LEON FESTINGER State University of Iowa I. INTRODUCTION The mark of maturity of a science is the extent to which it can state its laws and functional relationships in precise mathematical terminology. Statistical techniques, especially those employing the theories of probability, have found wide application in psychology. Some geometrical concepts, par- ticularly those of topology, have also been use dalthough somewhat less widely. Rarely, if ever, however, has there been a thorough application of both types of mathematical means in psychological theory. Recently in psychophysics an attempt has been made by Cartwright (5) to utilize geometrical concepts in the con- struction of a theory which brings psychophysics and motiva- tion psychology closer together. We shall here attempt to bring statistical and geometrical concepts together in a quantitative theory of decision. Cartwright presented a theory of decision-time in topo- logical and vectorial terms which leads to the gross prediction that decision time approaches a maximum as the relative frequency of a given response approaches fifty per cent. This theory makes congruent otherwise unrelated and apparently inconsistent psychophysical data . In the present paper we shall make a refinement and further quantification