George Armitage Miller

Pioneering cognitive psychologist, founder of psycholinguistics and WordNet.

Chronology: 1920-02-03 – 2012-07-22

Origins & Early Life

George Armitage Miller (February 3, 1920 – July 22, 2012) was an American psychologist who was one of the founders of cognitive psychology, and more broadly, of cognitive science. He also contributed to the birth of psycholinguistics. Miller wrote several books and directed the development of WordNet, an online word-linkage database usable by computer programs. He authored the paper, "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two," in which he observed that many different experimental findings considered together reveal the presence of an average limit of seven for human short-term memory capacity.

Pivotal Works & Achievements

This paper is frequently cited by psychologists and in the wider culture. Miller won numerous awards, including the National Medal of Science. Miller began his career when the reigning theory in psychology was behaviorism, which eschewed the study of mental processes and focused on observable behavior. Rejecting this approach, Miller devised experimental techniques and mathematical methods to analyze mental processes, focusing particularly on speech and language. Working mostly at Harvard University, MIT and Princeton University, he went on to become one of the founders of psycholinguistics...

Enduring Legacy & Impact

The historical impact and works continue to influence the modern world.

Source: Wikipedia