Cognitive Science - Important People

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Aristotle: An empiricist who countered Plato. Aristotle believed that knowledge results from sensation and experience. He also believed, as a materialist, that reality is comprised of physical matter.

Bartlett, Sir Fredrick: A psychologist who made great contributions in the area of schematic representation.
Binet, Alfred: A French psychologist who devised the first successful general intelligence test and coined the term Intelligence Quotient (IQ).
Broca, Paul: A French surgeon who worked with aphasiac patients, and discovered a part of the brain responsible for language production.

Chomsky, Noam: A twentieth century linguist known for his nativist perspective, or belief that the human brain has a built in “language device” that allows us to speak and understand language naturally.

Descartes, Rene: A rationalist who built upon the ideas of Plato. Descartes was also a proponent of dualism, the idea that the mind and body are two separate entities.
Donders, Franciscus: The first person to find a way to measure the time it takes to think.

Ebbinghaus, Hermann: A nineteenth century German psychologist who did significant work on the topics of memory and psychometrics.

Gall, Franz Joseph: An anatomist who developed the system of phrenology and supported the idea of localization of function.
Galton, Sir Francis: A psychometrician who tried to measure intelligence based on sensory discrimination and reaction time.
Gardner, Howard: A present day psychologist who created a theory of multiple intelligences in response to the traditional, and in his mind limited, IQ tests.

Hebb, Donald O.: A neuropsychologist who developed the idea of cell assemblies to explain the brain’s plasticity.

James, William: A psychologist and philosopher who made important contributions to the controversy between determinism and free will, as well as numerous aspects of psychology, such as consciousness and problem solving.

Kant, Immanuel: A philosopher who tried to synthesize the rationalist and empiricist perspective.

Lashley, Karl: The most memorable speaker at the Hixon Symposium, who encouraged the emergence of the field of cognitive science.
Locke, John: An empiricist who countered Descartes’ theory that knowledge is innate. Locke coined the term “blank slate” as a description of the mind at birth.

McCulloch, Warren & Pitts, Walter: These men worked together to create a model of a neural network.

Newell, Allen & Simon, Herbert: Two scientists who frequently worked together in the field of artificial intelligence. They are well known for creating the Logic Theorist program.

Penfield, Wilder: A neurosurgeon who found that stimulating certain parts of the cortex evokes specific motor effects, sensations, or memories.
Piaget, Jean: A developmental psychologist who, most notably, created his theory of the four stages of child development.
Plato: This prominent ancient Greek philosopher offered the idea now known as rationalism. Plato believed that the mind was the source of all knowledge, and believed that all that we know is innate. Plato also emphasized philosophical reflection over empirical observations and scientific discoveries.
Putnam, Hilary: A philosopher and mathematician who took a functionalist perspective in that he saw computers and their software as analogous to the human body and mind.

Sapir, Edward and Whorf, Benjamin Lee: Linguists who worked together to form the hypotheses of linguistic determinism (our language determines the way we think), and linguistic relativity (the distinctions in one language will not necessarily be the same as the distinctions in another language).
Searle, John: A critic of the Turing test, who developed the Chinese room problem to point out that ultimately the field of artificial intelligence will be found a failure.
Shannon, Claude: The creator of information theory.
Skinner, B.F.: An important figure in behaviorism whose ideas support Locke’s empiricism. Skinner felt that studying the mind was useless, and that all behavior is a result of environmental stimuli.
Spearman, Charles: A British psychologist who developed the concept of a general intelligence, known as g.
Sternberg, Robert: A modern day cognitive scientist who highly values “real life” intelligence and ability to adapt to one’s environment, rather than the sorts of skills a traditional IQ test would measure.

Turing, Alan: A British mathematician who created the notion of a Turing Machine.

Von Neumann, John: A mid-twentieth century computer scientist who made important contributions to the architecture of the computer and to military technology.

Watson, John B.: The founder of the school of behaviorism.
Wechsler, David: A psychologist who created an IQ test that measures both verbal and performance aptitudes.
Weiner, Norbert: The founder of the field of Cybernetics.
Wernicke, Karl: A neuroscientist who discovered a portion of the brain largely responsible for language comprehension.
Wundt, William: A psychologist who used the method of introspection to gain insight into cognitive functioning.