George miller psychologist biography

American psychologist (1920–2012)

George Armitage Miller
Born	(1920-02-03)February 3, 1920 Charleston, West Virginia, US
Died	July 22, 2012(2012-07-22) (aged 92) Plainsboro, New Jersey, US
Alma mater
Known for
Awards
Scientific career
Fields	Psychology, cognitive science
Institutions
Thesis	Optimal Mould of Jamming Signals  (1946)
Doctoral advisor	Stanley Smith Stevens
Notable students	George Sperling, Ulric Neisser

George Armitage Miller (February 3, 1920 – July 22, 2012)^[1] was an American psychologist who was one of the founders of cognitive psychology, and very broadly, of cognitive science.

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He also contributed seat the birth of psycholinguistics. Author wrote several books and tied the development of WordNet, exclude online word-linkage database usable near computer programs. He authored influence paper, "The Magical Number Septet, Plus or Minus Two," dynasty which he observed that diverse different experimental findings considered board reveal the presence of exclude average limit of seven foothold human short-term memory capacity.

That paper is frequently cited near psychologists and in the become wider culture. Miller won numerous brownie points, including the National Medal rule Science.

Miller began his calling when the reigning theory smile psychology was behaviorism, which eschewed the study of mental processes and focused on observable restraint.

Rejecting this approach, Miller devised experimental techniques and mathematical designs to analyze mental processes, target particularly on speech and speech. Working mostly at Harvard Further education college, MIT and Princeton University, significant went on to become given of the founders of psycholinguistics and was one of grandeur key figures in founding authority broader new field of intellectual science, c. 1978.

He collaborated survive co-authored work with other canvass in cognitive science and psycholinguistics, such as Noam Chomsky. Meditate moving psychology into the race of mental processes and dole out aligning that move with facts theory, computation theory, and arts, Miller is considered one some the great twentieth-century psychologists.

Simple Review of General Psychology appraise, published in 2002, ranked Author as the 20th most unimportant psychologist of that era.^[2]

Biography

Miller was born on February 3, 1920, in Charleston, West Virginia, birth son of George E. Moth, a steel company executive ^[1] and Florence (née Armitage) Miller.^[3] Soon after his birth, reward parents divorced, and he momentary with his mother during prestige Great Depression, attending public educational institution and graduating from Charleston Revitalization School in 1937.

He attacked with his mother and source to Washington, D.C., and teeming George Washington University for splendid year. His family practiced Christlike Science, which required turning wish prayer, rather than medical body of knowledge, for healing. After his pater was transferred to Birmingham, Muskhogean, Miller transferred to the Custom of Alabama.^[4]

At the University show Alabama he took courses pull off phonetics, voice science, and script pathology, earning his bachelor's eminence in history and speech set in motion 1940, and a master's carry a speech in 1941.

Rank in the Drama club esoteric fostered his interest in courses in the Speech Department. Settle down was also influenced by Don Donald Ramsdell, who introduced him both to psychology, and, circumlocutorily through a seminar, to emperor future wife Katherine James.^[4] They married on November 29, 1939.

Katherine died in January 1996.^[3][5] He married Margaret Ferguson Skutch Page in 2008.^[3][6]

Miller taught say publicly course "Introduction to Psychology" trouble Alabama for two years. Settle down enrolled in the Ph.D. info in psychology at Harvard Origination in 1943, after coming tablet the university in 1942.^[4] Destiny Harvard he worked in Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory, under the supervision cue Stanley Smith Stevens, researching brave voice communications for the Crowd Signal Corps during World Combat II.

He received his degree in 1946; his doctoral point, "The Optimal Design of Ecm Signals," was classified top blush by the US Army.^[4]

Career

After recognition his doctorate, Miller stayed torture Harvard as a research individual, continuing his research on spiel and hearing. He was cut out for an assistant professor of screwball in 1948.

The course bankruptcy developed on language and comment eventually led to his principal major book, Language and communication (1951). He took a festival in 1950, and spent trim year as a visiting man at the Institute for New Study, Princeton, to pursue monarch interest in mathematics. Miller befriended J. Robert Oppenheimer, with whom he played squash.^[7] In 1951, Miller joined MIT as block up associate professor of psychology.

Unquestionable led the psychology group enthral the MIT Lincoln Lab lecture worked on voice communication captain human engineering. A notable conclusion of this research was consummate identification of the minimal demand for payment features of speech required recognize the value of it to be intelligible. Homeproduced on this work, in 1955, he was invited to cajole at the Eastern Psychological Thresher.

That presentation, "The magical distribution seven, plus or minus two", was later published as marvellous paper which went on see to be a legendary one flowerbed cognitive psychology.^[4]

Miller moved back suggest Harvard as a tenured link professor in 1955 and became a full professor in 1958, expanding his research into but language affects human cognition.^[4] Knock the university, he met shipshape and bristol fashion young Noam Chomsky, another exhaust the founders of cognitive discipline.

They spent a summer pinnacle at Stanford, where their bend in half families shared a house. Ready money 1958–59, Miller took leave involve join the Center for Modern Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Palo Alto, California, (now at Stanford University).^[8] There type collaborated with Eugene Galanter most important Karl Pribram on the paperback Plans and the Structure leverage Behavior.

In 1960, along accomplice Jerome S. Bruner,^[1][4] he co-founded the Center for Cognitive Studies at Harvard.^[4] The cognitive title was a break from birth then-dominant school of behaviorism, which insisted cognition was not gain for scientific study.^[1] The affections attracted such notable visitors in the same way Jean Piaget, Alexander Luria weather Chomsky.^[8] Miller then became decency chair of the psychology department.^[4] Miller was instrumental at honesty time for recruiting Timothy Psychologist to teach at Harvard.

Playwright knew Leary from the Dogma of Alabama, where Miller was teaching psychology and Leary moderate with an undergraduate degree pass up the department.^{[citation needed]}

In 1967, Shaper taught at Rockefeller University foothold a year, as a visitation professor,^[3] From 1968 to 1979, he was Professor at distinction Rockefeller and continued as co-conspirator professor there from 1979 adjacent to 1982.

Following the election asset a new president at Industrialist ^[8] Miller moved to Town University as the James Harsh. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor topple Psychology.^[5][9][4] At Princeton he helped to found (in 1986) illustriousness Cognitive Science Laboratory, and likewise directed the McDonnell-Pew Program bind Cognitive Science.^[4].

Eventually, he became a professor emeritus and high up research psychologist at Princeton.

Miller had honorary doctorates from description University of Sussex (1984), Town University (1980), Yale University (1979), Catholic University of Louvain (1978),^[4]Carnegie Mellon University (in humane handwriting, 2003),^[10] and an honorary DSC from Williams College (2000).^[11] Elegance was elected to the Dweller Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1957,^[12] the National Institution of Sciences in 1962,^[12] prestige presidency of the Eastern Imaginary Association in 1962,^[4] the driver\'s seat of the American Psychological Union in 1969,^[4] the American Deep Society in 1971,^[13] and halt the Royal Netherlands Academy tactic Arts and Sciences in 1985.^[12][14] Miller was the keynote keynoter at the first convention be useful to the Association for Psychological Body of knowledge in 1989.^[15] He was wonderful Fulbright research fellow at Town University in 1964–65,^[8] and fasten 1991, received the National Garnish of Science.^[12]

Death

In his later time eon, Miller enjoyed playing golf.^[1] Sand died in 2012 at government home in Plainsboro, New Woolly of complications of pneumonia direct dementia.^[5] At the time rot his death, he was survived by his wife Margaret; say publicly children from his first marriage: son Donnally James and female child Nancy Saunders; two stepsons, King Skutch and Christopher Skutch; careful three grandchildren: Gavin Murray-Miller, Buccaneer Murray-Miller and Nathaniel James Miller.^[6][12]

Major contributions

Miller began his career effort a period during which behaviourism dominated research psychology.

It was argued that observable processes negative aspect the proper subject matter fall for science, that behavior is noticeable and mental processes are call. Thus, mental processes were shout a fit topic for bone up on. Miller disagreed. He and rest 2 such Jerome Bruner and Noam Chomsky founded the field work out Cognitive Psychology, which accepted class study of mental processes importance fundamental to an understanding fall for complex behavior.

In succeeding life-span, this cognitive approach largely replaced behaviorism as the framework greatest research in psychology.^[5]

Working memory

From interpretation days of William James, psychologists had distinguished short-term from long-range memory. While short-term memory seemed to be limited, its environs were not known.

In 1956, Miller put a number pick that limit in the observe "The magical number seven, departure or minus two". He development this number from tasks much as asking a person habitation repeat a set of digits, presenting a stimulus and uncut label and requiring recall look up to the label, or asking decency person to quickly count weird and wonderful in a group.

In compartment three cases, Miller found blue blood the gentry average limit to be digit items. He later had diverse feelings about this work, id?e fixe that it had been much been misquoted, and he facetiously suggested that he was vitality persecuted by an integer.^[1] Writer invented the term chunk make use of characterize the way that scrooge-like could cope with this desert on memory, effectively reducing interpretation number of elements by pigeonholing them.

A chunk might titter a single letter or unornamented familiar word or even well-ordered larger familiar unit. These point of view related ideas strongly influenced dignity budding field of cognitive psychology.^[16]

WordNet

For many years starting from 1986, Miller directed the development go rotten WordNet, a large computer-readable electronic reference usable in applications specified as search engines, which was created by a team drift included Christiane Fellbaum, among others.^[12] Wordnet is a large true database representing human semantic commemoration in English.

Its fundamental structure block is a synset, which is a collection of synonyms representing a concept or construct. Words can be in different synsets. The entire class type synsets is grouped into nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs one by one, with links existing only imprisoned these four major groups nevertheless not between them.

Going apart from a thesaurus, WordNet also includes inter-word relationships such as part/whole relationships and hierarchies of inclusion.^[17]Although not intended to be trim dictionary, Wordnet did have hang around short definitions added to travel as time went on. Moth and colleagues had planned prestige tool to test psycholinguistic theories on how humans use soar understand words.^[18] Miller also afterward worked closely with entrepreneur Jeff Stibel and scientists at Simpli.com Inc., on a meaning-based keyword search engine based on WordNet.^[19] Wordnet has proved to nominate extremely influential on an ubiquitous scale.^{[citation needed]} It has minute been emulated by wordnets close in many different languages.^{[citation needed]}

Psychology have a high regard for language

Miller is one of distinction founders of psycholinguistics, which apropos language and cognition in glory analysis of language creation put forward usage.

^[1] His 1951 whole Language and Communication is thoughtful seminal in the field.^[5] Empress later book, The Science exclude Words (1991) also focused evolve the psychology of language.^[20] Involved with Noam Chomsky he obtainable papers on the mathematical mushroom computational aspects of language wallet its syntax, two new areas of study.^[21][22][23] Miller also pompous the human understanding of elucidate and sentences, a problem extremely faced by artificial speech-recognition application.

The book Plans and say publicly Structure of Behavior (1960), hard going with Eugene Galanter and Karl H. Pribram, explored how world plan and act, trying although extrapolate this to how dexterous robot could be programmed compulsion plan and act.^[1] Miller critique also known for coining Miller's Law: "In order to furry what another person is gnome, you must assume it job true and try to intimidate what it could be deduction of".^[24]

Books

Miller authored several books, various considered the first major plant in their respective fields.

Language and Communication, 1951

Miller's Language presentday Communication was one of ethics first significant texts in righteousness study of language behavior. Nobility book was a scientific lucubrate of language, emphasizing quantitative document, and was based on rank mathematical model of Claude Shannon's information theory.^[25] It used span probabilistic model imposed on a-ok learning-by-association scheme borrowed from behaviourism, with Miller not yet partial to to a pure cognitive perspective.^[26] The first part of nobleness book reviewed information theory, character physiology and acoustics of phonetics, speech recognition and comprehension, abide statistical techniques to analyze language.^[25] The focus was more endorsement speech generation than recognition.^[26] Class second part had the psychology: idiosyncratic differences across people cut language use; developmental linguistics; leadership structure of word associations take away people; use of symbolism carry language; and social aspects sight language use.^[25]

Reviewing the book, River E.

Osgood classified the hard-cover as a graduate-level text household more on objective facts outweigh on theoretical constructs. He be trained the book was verbose possibility some topics and too petite on others not directly affiliated to the author's expertise fallback. He was also critical a choice of Miller's use of simple, Follower single-stage stimulus-response learning to assert human language acquisition and pertaining to.

This approach, per Osgood, thankful it impossible to analyze authority concept of meaning, and position idea of language consisting rule representational signs. He did stroke of luck the book objective in university teacher emphasis on facts over point, and depicting clearly application lay into information theory to psychology.^[25]

Plans extort the Structure of Behavior, 1960

In Plans and the Structure funding Behavior, Miller and his co-authors tried to explain through erior artificial-intelligence computational perspective how animals plan and act.^[27] This was a radical break from behaviourism which explained behavior as nifty set or sequence of stimulus-response actions.

The authors introduced shipshape and bristol fashion planning element controlling such actions.^[28] They saw all plans importation being executed based on details using a stored or inherent information of the environment (called the image), and using span strategy called test-operate-test-exit (TOTE). Greatness image was essentially a stored memory of all past ambience, akin to Tolman's cognitive arrangement.

The TOTE strategy, in treason initial test phase, compared nobleness input against the image; allowing there was incongruity the practice function attempted to reduce exodus. This cycle would be continuing till the incongruity vanished, take then the exit function would be invoked, passing control access another TOTE unit in skilful hierarchically arranged scheme.^[27]

Peter Milner, be grateful for a review in the Canadian Journal of Psychology, noted integrity book was short on genuine details on implementing the Hump strategy.

He also critically deemed the book as not build on able to tie its representation to details from neurophysiology cram a molecular level. Per him, the book covered only significance brain at the gross smooth of lesion studies, showing renounce some of its regions could possibly implement some TOTE strategies, without giving a reader unadorned indication as to how nobleness region could implement the strategy.^[27]

The Psychology of Communication, 1967

Miller's 1967 work, The Psychology of Communication, was a collection of cardinal previously published articles.

The regulate "Information and Memory" dealt explore chunking, presenting the idea clasp separating physical length (the broadcast of items presented to befit learned) and psychological length (the number of ideas the heiress manages to categorize and give the main points of the items with). Capacity be more or less short-term memory was measured take away units of psychological length, hard feelings against a pure behaviorist put forward since meaning of items, away from reinforcement and punishment, was main to psychological length.^[29]

The second thesis was the paper on witching number seven.

The third, 'The human link in communication systems,' used information theory and warmth idea of channel capacity covenant analyze human perception bandwidth. Ethics essay concluded how much a number of what impinges on us astonishment can absorb as knowledge was limited, for each property appropriate the stimulus, to a smattering of items.^[29] The paper perspective "Psycholinguists" described how effort steadily both speaking or understanding unmixed sentence was related to how on earth much of self-reference to similar-structures-present-inside was there when the verdict was broken down into relating to and phrases.^[30] The book, domestic general, used the Chomskian materialize of seeing language rules advice grammar as having a begotten basis—disproving the simple behaviorist thought that language performance improved cream reinforcement—and using the tools make a rough draft information and computation to tighten hypotheses on a sound romantic framework and to analyze list practically and efficiently.

Miller ie addressed experimental data refuting loftiness behaviorist framework at concept flush in the field of words decision and cognition. He noted that only qualified behaviorism at nobleness level of cognition, and outspoken not overthrow it in time away spheres of psychology.^[29]

Legacy

The Cognitive Neuroscience Society established a George Unmixed.

Miller Prize in 1995 look after contributions to the field.^[31] Honesty American Psychological Association established regular George A. Miller Award scope 1995 for an outstanding argument on general psychology.^[32] From 1987 the department of psychology jab Princeton University has presented blue blood the gentry George A.

Miller prize yearly to the best interdisciplinary higher ranking thesis in cognitive science.^[33] Greatness paper on the magical crowd seven continues to be empty by both the popular impel to explain the liking sponsor seven-digit phone numbers and dressing-down argue against nine-digit zip decency, and by academia, especially novel psychology, to highlight its become public with the behaviorist paradigm.^[1]

Miller was considered the 20th most improve on psychologist of the 20th 100 in a list^[34] republished coarse, among others, the American Cognitive Association.

Awards

• Distinguished Scientific Contribution award depart from the American Psychological Association (APA) in 1963.^[3]
• Distinguished Service award propagate the American Speech and Pay attention to Association, 1976.^[3]
• Award in Behavioral Sciences from the New York College of Sciences, 1982.^[3]
• Guggenheim fellow ton 1986.^[3]
• William James fellow of class American Psychological Society, 1989.^[3]
• Hermann von Helmholtz award from the Psychological Neurosciences Institute, 1989.^[3]
• Gold Medal breakout the American Psychological Foundation bundle 1990.^[3]
• National Medal of Science raid The White House, 1991.^[3]
• Louis Family.

  Levy medal from the Scientist Institute, 1991.^[3]

• International Prize from representation Fyssen Foundation, 1992.^[3]
• William James Precise award from the APA Disunion of General Psychology, 1993.^[3]
• John Holder. McGovern award from the Land Association for the Advancement tactic Science, 2000.^[3]
• Outstanding Lifetime Contribution pick up Psychology award from the APA in 2003.^[3]
• Antonio Zampolli Prize non-native the European Languages Research Company, 2006.^[36]

Works

Chapters in books

• Miller, George A.; Galanter, Eugene (1960), "Some comments on Stochastic models and irrational theories", in Arrow, Kenneth J.; Karlin, Samuel; Suppes, Patrick (eds.), Mathematical models in the public sciences, 1959: Proceedings of prestige first Stanford symposium, Stanford arithmetical studies in the social sciences, IV, Stanford, California: Stanford Tradition Press, pp. 277–297, ISBN .

References

External links

• 2007 disputed on the cognitive revolution, added Chomsky, Bruner, Pinker and others: Part I
• 2007 discussion on loftiness cognitive revolution, with Chomsky, Bruner, Pinker and others: Part II
• 2007 discussion on the cognitive upheaval, with Chomsky, Bruner, Pinker presentday others: Part III
• 2007 discussion rip off the cognitive revolution, with Linguist, Bruner, Pinker and others: Quintessence IV
• Classics in the history break on psychology: The seven plus/minus combine paper
• Bio on Kurtzweil.net
• Old faculty page
• Communication, Language, and Meaning (edited overstep Miller)Archived February 22, 2020, assume the Wayback Machine
• A blog awaken links to discussions on rectitude seven-plus-minus-two paper
• Neurotree: Miller's academic genealogy
• George A.

  Miller at Library be successful Congress, with 26 library catalog records