Ulric Neisser

Ulric Richard Gustav Neisser (December 8, 1928 – February 17, 2012) was a German-American psychologist, Cornell University professor, and member of the US National Academy of Sciences. He has been referred to as the "father of cognitive psychology". Neisser researched and wrote about perception and memory. He posited that a person's mental processes could be measured and subsequently analyzed.

In 1967, Neisser published Cognitive Psychology, which he later said was considered an attack on behaviorist psychological paradigms. Cognitive Psychology brought Neisser instant fame and recognition in the field of psychology.

Early life Ulric Gustav Neisser was born in Kiel, Germany, on December 8, 1928. Neisser's father, Hans Neisser, was a distinguished Jewish economist. In 1923 he married Neisser's mother, Charlotte ("Lotte"), who was a lapsed Catholic active in women's movement in Germany and had a degree in sociology. Neisser also had an older sister, Marianne, who was born in 1924. Neisser's attraction to baseball alerted him to an idea that he would later call a "flashbulb memory". He subsequently entered the master's program at Swarthmore College. Neisser wanted to attend Swarthmore College because that was where Wolfgang Kohler, one of the founders of Gestalt psychology, was a faculty member. Neisser also met and became friends with a new assistant professor, Henry Gleitman, His well-known Challenger study was conducted while he was at Emory. In 1998, he published The Rising Curve: Long-Term Gains in IQ and Related Measures.

Neisser was both a Guggenheim and Sloan Fellow. More importantly, Dean combined into single "memories" a combination of events that actually occurred at different times. As Neisser states, "what seems to be a remembered episode actually represents a repeated series of events". Neisser suggested that such memory errors are common, reflecting the nature of memory as a process of construction.

Flashbulb memories The concept of flashbulb memories was first described by Brown and Kulik in their 1977 paper on memories of John F. Kennedy's assassination. Thus, a very surprising striking and significant event that induces high emotional arousal may yield a vivid, accurate memory of the time, place and other circumstances ongoing at the time of learning of the event. Neisser sought to analyse this conception of memory by undertaking a study of individual's memories of the Challenger Space Shuttle explosion. Immediately following the Challenger explosion in January 1986, Neisser distributed a questionnaire to college freshmen asking them to write down key information as to where they were, who they were with, and what time it was, when the Challenger explosion occurred. Three years later, Neisser surveyed the now senior students using the same survey to examine the accuracy of their memory.

Death Neisser died due to Parkinson's disease on February 17, 2012, in Ithaca, New York.

Publications

Books and book chapters Neisser, U. (1967). Cognitive psychology. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall. Neisser, U. (1976). Cognition and reality: Principles and implications of cognitive psychology. New York: Freeman. Neisser, U. (Ed.) (1982). Memory observed: Remembering in natural contexts. New York: Worth Publishers. Neisser, U. (Ed.) (1987). Concepts and conceptual development: Ecological and intellectual factors in categorization (Emory Symposia in Cognition 1) New York, NY US: Cambridge University Press. Neisser, U., & Winograd, E. (Eds.). (1988). Remembering Reconsidered: Ecological and Traditional Approaches to the Study of Memory (Emory Symposia in Cognition 2) Cambridge University Press. Neisser, U., & Harsch, N. (1992). Phantom flashbulbs: False recollections of hearing the news about Challenger. In E. Winograd, U. Neisser (Eds.), Affect and accuracy in recall: Studies of 'flashbulb' memories (Emory Symposia in Cognition 4) (pp. 9–31). New York, NY US: Cambridge University Press. Neisser, U. (Ed.) (1993). The Perceived self: Ecological and interpersonal sources of self-knowledge (Emory Symposia in Cognition 5). Cambridge England: Cambridge University Press. Neisser, U., & Fivush, R. (Eds.) (1994). The remembering self: Construction and accuracy in the self-narrative (Emory Symposia in Cognition 6). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Neisser, U., & Jopling, D. A. (Eds.) (1997). The conceptual self in context: Culture, experience, self-understanding (Emory Symposia in Cognition 7) New York, NY US: Cambridge University Press. Neisser, U. (Ed.) (1998). The rising curve: Long-term gains in IQ and related measures. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Neisser, U. (2003). Cognitive psychology. In, The history of psychology: Fundamental questions (pp. 447–466). New York, NY US: Oxford University Press. Neisser, U., & Winograd, E. (2006). Remembering reconsidered: Ecological and traditional approaches to the study of memory. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press. Neisser, U. (2007). Ulric Neisser. In G. Lindzey, W. M. Runyan (Eds.), A history of psychology in autobiography, Vol. IX (pp. 269–301). Washington, DC US: American Psychological Association.

Journal articles