| 1 | Name: | Dr. Richard M. Shiffrin | |
| Institution: | Indiana University | ||
| Year Elected: | 2005 | ||
| Class: | 3. Social Sciences | ||
| Subdivision: | 305 | ||
| Residency: | Resident | ||
| Living? : | Living | ||
| Birth Date: | 1942 | ||
Richard M. Shiffrin received his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1968. Subsequently he joined the faculty at the University of Indiana as assistant professor, associate professor and professor. He became Luther Dana Waterman Research Professor in 1980 and director of the university's Cognitive Science Program in 1988. Dr. Shiffrin has played a major role in three research developments, each of which have placed him among the top rank of investigators in cognitive psychology. The first was the development of the first comprehensive computer model of short-term memory (with R.C. Atkinson). The model incorporated a critical distinction between memory structures versus control (mental strategies) processes, proposed an architecture for short-term memory, and provided mathematical derivations fit to extensive sets of experimental data. It set the theoretical framework and style for the major research in the psychology of memory up to the present. Dr. Shiffrin's second major contribution was a novel and incisive experimental method for distinguishing voluntary from involuntary attention. The method showed how automatic attention could be developed as a result of specific learning experiences, and it enabled the quantitative characterization of these two modes of attention. Dr. Shiffrin has also worked to develop and refine a network model for associative memory that integrates hitherto fragmented bodies of research on recognition and recall processes in memory into a single, coherent, computational theory. His masterful combination of mathematical modeling with experimental analyses has been a model for other investigators in all these fields. He continually evolves and refines the theory, more recently using a Bayesian framework for memory decision processes, and applying the theory to data from many studies of priming and implicit memory. His collected works must be considered one of the major contributions to modern theories of memory. A Guggenheim Fellow (1975-76) and recipient of the Merit Research Award from the National Institutes of Mental Health (1991-2001), Dr. Shiffrin was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1995. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2005. In 2018 he was awarded the Atkinson Prize. | |||