The Cognition Project

The Cognition Project is an oral history of cognitive science. Created and hosted by Tom Griffiths, the head of Princeton’s AI Lab and a professor of psychology and computer science.This episode is about Donald Norman, who had a rich career that crossed from the East to the West Coast, from engineering to psychology, and from academia to industry. Norman also played a key role in the creation of the Cognitive Science Society, its first conference, and the first cognitive science department. 

The Cognition Project is an oral history of cognitive science. Created and hosted by Tom Griffiths, the head of Princeton’s AI Lab and a professor of psychology and computer science.Our story of the origins of cognitive science has so far been focused in the United States, but a similar awareness of new ways to study the mind was growing on the other side of the Atlantic, in the United Kingdom. In this episode we hear from Phil Johnson-Laird who witnessed some of the early days of British cognitive psychology and developed his own influential account of human reasoning.

The Cognition Project is an oral history of cognitive science. Created and hosted by Tom Griffiths, the head of Princeton’s AI Lab and a professor of psychology and computer science.This episode is with Ewart Thomas, who offers a final perspective on the mathematical psychology scene at Stanford as well as a bridge to the early days of cognitive psychology in England.

The Cognition Project is an oral history of cognitive science. Created and hosted by Tom Griffiths, the head of Princeton’s AI Lab and a professor of psychology and computer science.This episode is about Elizabeth Loftus, who grew disenchanted with mathematical psychology and went on to create a new field, studying the psychology of eyewitness testimony.

The Cognition Project is an oral history of cognitive science. Created and hosted by Tom Griffiths, the head of Princeton’s AI Lab and a professor of psychology and computer science.This episode is with Richard Shiffrin, who offers a student’s perspective on the cognitive psychology scene at Stanford in the 1960s. He worked with Gordon Bower and Richard Atkinson and went on to become one of the most influential researchers studying human memory.

The Cognition Project is an oral history of cognitive science. Created and hosted by Tom Griffiths, the head of Princeton’s AI Lab and a professor of psychology and computer science.This episode is about Roger Shepard, who created innovative methods to let us peek inside people’s heads. He ultimately used those tools to propose psychology’s first universal law.

The Cognition Project is an oral history of cognitive science. Created and hosted by Tom Griffiths, the head of Princeton’s AI Lab and a professor of psychology and computer science.Continuing to trace the development of cognitive psychology, this episode tells the story of Gordon Bower. At a time when psychologists still had to demonstrate that this new approach to their science could offer insights that went beyond merely studying behavior, Bower devised clever methods for revealing the complexity of human minds.

The Cognition Project is an oral history of cognitive science. Created and hosted by Tom Griffiths, the head of Princeton’s AI Lab and a professor of psychology and computer science.This episode is with Richard Atkinson, who did groundbreaking work exploring the structure of human memory before going on to be the Director of the National Science Foundation, Chancellor of UC San Diego, and ultimately President of the entire University of California.

The Cognition Project is an oral history of cognitive science. Created and hosted by Tom Griffiths, the head of Princeton’s AI Lab and a professor of psychology and computer science.This episode is the story of Dan Slobin, who offers both a perspective on the East Coast origins of cognitive science and how it evolved on the West Coast.