Donald Eric (D. E.) Broadbent CBE,[1] FRS[2] (Birmingham, 6 May 1926 – 10 April 1993)[3] was an influential experimental psychologist from the United Kingdom.

[4] His career and research bridged the gap between the pre-World War II approach of Sir Frederic Bartlett[5] and what became known as cognitive psychology in the late 1960s.

Despite family and financial circumstances, Broadbent's mother managed to send him to Winchester; she didn't ever want him to be disadvantaged compared to others with a superior education.

During his time training in the United States however, he was exposed to a more widely accepted and studied field of psychology that piqued his interest.

[7] In 1974 Broadbent became a fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford and returned to applied science; along with his colleague Dianne Berry, he developed new ideas about implicit learning from consideration of human performance in complex industrial processes.

[citation needed] The Applied Psychology Unit was responsible for advising the government and he worked in studies with noise and technology.

His theory is based on the multi-storage paradigm of William James (1890) and the more recent 'multi-store' memory model by Atkinson & Shiffrin in 1968.

[14] Together they had two daughters before going separate ways; the marriage was dissolved in 1972 when Broadbent married Margaret Gregory, who had worked as his research assistant and became a lifelong collaborator.