Distinguished Professor Richard M. Shiffrin | |||
 Photo by: Paul Martens Richard M. Shiffrin Luther Dana Waterman Professor of Psychology, Director, Cognitive Science Program, College of Arts and Sciences, University Graduate School, IU Bloomington
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Forgot the name of
the person you were just introduced to? Forgot the name of your best
friend in fourth grade? It's been about 35 years since psychologists
learned how your brain searches for these two types of memory, called
"short-term" and "long-term." It was Richard Shiffrin
and his graduate adviser at Stanford, Richard Atkinson, who presented
the first fully developed model of these memories, now known as the
Atkinson-Shiffrin model. Shiffrin's subsequent discoveries about the human brain's processes of memory and cognition have been equally groundbreaking. Many of Shiffrin's colleagues, in fact, call his work with Walter Schneider and other students in the 1970s and 1980s—on attention and "automatic processes," or things we do without thinking about it—even more revolutionary than his earliest work. The editors of Psychological Review, the field's most prominent journal, recently included two papers by Shiffrin and Schneider on their list of the 10 most important and most cited papers that had ever been published by the journal in its 100-year history. Robert Goldstone, IU professor and executive editor of Cognitive Science, predicts that Shiffrin's "more recent work on mathematical models of memory is on a trajectory to be among the 10 most cited papers of the next decade." Shiffrin continues to advance the study of cognition and has led the way for Indiana University to become a leader in this evolving field. In 1988, he established IU's Cognitive Science Program. With his former students holding influential positions worldwide, Shiffrin's reputation is clearly international. The short list of these students includes Susan Dumais, Walter Schneider, Wilson Geisler and Jeroen Raaijmakers, all leaders in the field of psychology, largely thanks to Shiffrin's mentorship. Steinmetz notes that Shiffrin "has garnered every major award the field of psychology has to offer." He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, received the Warren Medal of the Society for Experimental Psychology and was awarded, just this past year, the David E. Rumelhart Prize for Formal Modeling of Human Cognition—called the "Nobel Prize of Cognitive Science." When writing in support of the distinguished professorship for Shiffrin, Edward E. Smith of the University of Michigan said, "I am amazed to find out that there is an honor at Indiana University that Rich Shiffrin has not already been awarded." Shiffrin also demonstrates a rare dedication to both the IU community and the community at large. Concerned with keeping academic work relevant to human welfare, Shiffrin and Charles Watson formed IU's Institute for the Study of Human Capabilities in 1991. Shiffrin today continues to serve as the institute's associate director.
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Publication date: March 1, 2002
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