| | 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. | |
| 2 | Name: | Dr. Anne M. Treisman | | | Institution: | Princeton University | | | Year Elected: | 2005 | | | Class: | 3. Social Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 305 | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1935 | | | Death Date: | February 9, 2018 | | | | | | |
Is attention involved in forming ordinary percepts of objects from the mosaic of color patches at the retina? Anne Treisman's thesis has been that attention is needed to bind together the component features of an object during early stages of visual processing. Without attention she showed they may be miscombined and mislocalized. Behavioral experiments and her fMRI studies provide strong supporting evidence. Another aspect concerns apparent motion: the illusory perception of continuous motion arising from temporally related but somewhat discontinuous visual events. Again, she showed that attention proves essential to that binding that is necessary to predict time paths of moving objects. Dr. Treisman was the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Psychology at Princeton University since 1995. She became emeritus in 2010. She also taught at Oxford University (1967-78), the University of British Columbia (1978-1986) and the University of California, Berkeley (1986-94). She received a D.Phil. From Oxford (1962) and was a member of the Psychonomic Society (governing board, 1985-89, chair 1988-89); the Royal Society (1989); the National Academy of Sciences (1994); and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (1995). She was awarded the National Medal of Science in 2012. Anne Treisman died February 9, 2018, at the age of 82. | |
| 3 | Name: | Dr. Frans B. M. de Waal | | | Institution: | Yerkes Primate Research Center; Emory University | | | Year Elected: | 2005 | | | Class: | 3. Social Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 305 | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1948 | | | | | | |
At a time when animal behavior was classified as either instinctive or acquired through trial-and-error learning, Frans de Waal produced convincing evidence that chimpanzees jockey for status with cunning and strategic foresight. His observations of "chimpanzee politics" were documented with such care for detail, both qualitative and quantitative, that they greatly stimulated the cognitive study and interpretation of animal behavior. At the same time, Dr. de Waal reported how chimpanzees resolve conflicts, assist one another reciprocally and console distressed individuals. His research on peacemaking, tit-for-tat, and empathy has inspired a new approach to the study of animal behavior. To date, it has produced over 125 scientific publications on conflict resolution in animals and children and is in the process of replacing the traditional evolutionary view of "everyone for itself" with a postulate of shared interests among social animals and a consequent need for compromise and reconciliation. In his work, Dr. de Waal has skillfully translated novel ideas into testable hypotheses, leading to elegant studies in peer-reviewed journals, including Science and Nature. He has significantly raised methodological standards for the study of animal social behavior and is internationally recognized for his depiction of primates as complex social beings as well as his empirically supported opposition to the view that the natural world is necessarily ruled by selfishness. Dr. de Waal has directed the Living Links, Yerkes Primate Research Center since 1997 and has been Research Professor of Psychobiology at Emory University since 1991 and Charles Howard Candler Professor of Primate Behavior since 1996. Winner of the 1989 Los Angeles Times Book Award, he is the author of works such as Peacemaking Among Primates (1989); Good Natured (1996); Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape (1997); Chimpanzee Politics (1998); The Ape and the Sushi Master (2001); The Age of Empathy: Nature's Lessons for a Kinder Society (2009); The Bonobo and the Atheist (2013); Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? (2016); and Mama's Last Hug: Animal and Human Emotions (2019). | |
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