Ulric Neisser

Ulric Neisser (1928–2012) was an American psychologist whose 1967 book Cognitive Psychology helped establish cognitive psychology as a field. He later became known for research on memory, perception, and ecological approaches to cognition.

George A. Miller: An American psychologist whose research on memory and language helped establish cognitive psychology. Miller’s work helped define the emerging field Neisser named and organized.
Cognitive Psychology (book): Ulric Neisser’s 1967 textbook presenting perception, memory, language, and thought as information-processing activities. This book made Neisser’s name closely associated with the field’s emergence.
Perceptual cycle: A model in which schemas guide exploration, exploration gathers information, and information modifies schemas. Neisser used this cycle to explain perception as active and self-correcting.
Challenger disaster memory study: A study of how people remembered learning about the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger explosion. Neisser and colleagues used this event to compare vivid confidence with changing memory reports.
Jerome Bruner: An American psychologist who helped develop cognitive and cultural approaches to psychology. Bruner’s cognitive research formed part of the intellectual setting for Neisser’s early work.
Cognitive psychology: The scientific study of mental processes such as perception, memory, language, reasoning, and decision-making. Neisser’s 1967 book helped establish this broader field.
Schema (psychology): An organized knowledge structure that shapes how information is interpreted and remembered. Schemas are the structures that guide exploration in Neisser’s perceptual cycle.
John Dean memory study: A comparison of John Dean’s Watergate testimony with recordings of the conversations he recalled. Neisser analyzed the study to show that confident recollection could diverge from recorded events.
Donald Broadbent: A British psychologist known for influential models of selective attention and information processing. Broadbent exemplified the information-processing approach Neisser later criticized.
Cognitive revolution: A mid-twentieth-century shift in psychology toward studying mental processes and representations. Neisser’s textbook became a landmark in this shift away from strict behaviorism.

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