George A. Miller

Abstract

The change in the last century from a psychology dominated by behaviorism to a psychology of cognitive science may seem, in retrospect, to have been an inevitable shift, as psychologists returned to conduct research on the neglected question of understanding the mind. Whether revolution or evolution, the seismic shift in re- search within psychology was accomplished by leaders in the field who developed innovative experimental models and theories that led to new understandings of cognitive functioning. George A. Miller was one of those who fostered a change in the orientation of psychology and whose body of work helped to shape the field. His death on July 22, 2012, at the age of 92, constitutes a loss for the community of scientists who have followed his lead. George was born in West Virginia on February 3, 1920. He studied history and speech at the University of Alabama and only slowly found his way into psychol- ogy. Although he spent 2 years teaching introductory psychology at Alabama, it is probably fair to say that he began his psychological studies in earnest at Harvard, entering the PhD program there in the midst of World War II. Building on his early undergraduate interest in drama and speech, George began his lifelong study of language, examining first phonetics and then, later in his career, grammar, and finally semantics. Under the tutelage of Stanley Smith Stevens, George’s initial research at Harvard reflected the dire needs of the time, focusing as it did on military voice communication. It was classified research, and George defended his thesis to a committee that could neither read it nor have George defend it in front of them. George remained at Harvard after receiving his PhD. His research continued to marry practical problems with deep theoretical insight. For instance, he inves- tigated the minimal phonetic features needed for intelligible speech, offering telecommunication companies dealing with small bandwidth critical information