AP Psych Unit 7 Key Contributors

Hermann Ebbinghaus (p.327)

Hermann Ebbinghaus was a German psychologist who pioneered the experimental study of memory, and is known for his discovery of the forgetting curve and the spacing effect. He was also the first person to describe the learning curve. The point to remember: Tests of recognition and of time spent relearning demonstrate that we remember more than we can recall.

Benjamin Lee Whorf (p. 389)

Linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf (1956) contended that "language itself shapes a [person's] basic ideas." The Hopi, who have no past tense for their verbs, could not readily think about the past, he said. Today's psychologists believe that a strong form of Whorf's idea—linguistic determinism—is too extreme.

Elizabeth Loftus (p. 356)

Loftus is best known for her ground-breaking work on the misinformation effect and eyewitness memory, and the creation and nature of false memories, including recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse.

Noam Chomsky (p. 383)

Noam Chomsky's theory of universal grammar says that we're all born with an innate understanding of the way language works.

Robert Sternberg (p.366)

Proposed the triarchic theory that divides intelligence into three types: compnential, experiential, and contextual

Richard Shiffrin (p.329)

Richard Shiffrin is the Luther Dana Waterman Professor of cognitive science for the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Indiana University, Bloomington. Atkinson and Shiffrin's classic three-step model helps us to think about how memories are processed, but today's researchers recognize other ways long-term memories form.

Eric Kandel (p.342)

Studied the sea slug Aplysia and posited that learning and memory are evidenced by changes in synapses and neural pathways.

Richard Atkinson (p.329)

The theory of human memory which Atkinson put forward with his student Richard Shiffrin has been influential in shaping research in the field of experimental psychology. Advances in computer-assisted instruction and methods for optimizing the learning process have been among the applied outcomes of his theoretical investigations. Atkinson and Shiffrin's classic three-step model helps us to think about how memories are processed, but today's researchers recognize other ways long-term memories form.

Wolfgang Kohler (p.370)

Wolfgang Kohler, German psychologist and co-creator of gestalt psychology, influenced psychology by contributing to the gestalt theory and being the first to note insight learning.

Steven Pinker (p. 381)

argued that grammar is an innate algorithm evolved by NS that requires a few parameters to be set by language experience

Amos Tversky (p.372)

cognitive psychologist who studied availability and representative HEURISTICS; Studied systematic human bias and handling of risk; worked to develop "prospective theory" which explains irrational human economic choices

Daniel Kahneman (p. 372)

psychologist who, along with Amos Tversky, conducted research to discover factors that influence human judgment and decision making; he won the Nobel Prize for this work in 2002

George A. Miller (p.332)

psychologist; found that short term memory has the capacity of about 7 (plus or minus 2) items

Paul Broca (p. 388)

A French physician and anatomist who discovered that the speech production center of the brain is located in an area of the lower left frontal lobe. Today, this area is referred to as Broca's area.

Carl Wernicke (p. 388)

A German neurologist and psychiatrist who discovered that damage to an area on the left temporal lobe caused deficits in language comprehension. Today, this area is referred to as Wernicke's area.