Eleanor M. Saffran (May 16, 1938 – November 23, 2002), an American neuroscientist, was a researcher in the field of Cognitive Neuropsychology. Her interest in

Neuropsychology Neuropsychology is a branch of psychology concerned with how a person's cognition and behavior are related to the brain and the rest of the nervous system. Professionals in this branch of psychology often focus on how injuries or illnesses of t ...

began at the Baltimore City hospitals of Johns Hopkins University, where her research unit focused on neurological patients with language or cognitive impairments. In papers published between 1976 and 1982, Dr. Saffran spelled out the methodological tenets of “cognitive neuropsychology” exemplified in her studies of aphasia,

alexia (acquired dyslexia) Dyslexia, also known until the 1960s as word blindness, is a disorder characterized by reading below the expected level for one's age. Different people are affected to different degrees. Problems may include difficulties in spelling words, r ...

, auditory verbal agnosia, and

short-term memory Short-term memory (or "primary" or "active memory") is the capacity for holding a small amount of information in an active, readily available state for a short interval. For example, short-term memory holds a phone number that has just been recit ...

impairment.

Career

In 1980, Saffran joined the Neurology Department of Temple University and established the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience. Here she built an interdisciplinary research group composed of neurologists,

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and interpretation of how indi ...

s, and speech-language pathologists. Under her leadership, this group extended the cognitive neuropsychological approach to the analysis of neurological disorders of perception, visual attention, and semantics. These years also marked the continuation of her longstanding collaboration with Myrna Schwartz of MossRehab (part of the

Einstein Healthcare Network Einstein Healthcare Network is a private non-profit healthcare organization based in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania region of the United States. The healthcare network serves Greater Philadelphia and its flagship hospital is the Einstein Medi ...

) which began in Baltimore in 1975. An innovative aspect of their research was its emphasis on application of language theory to diagnosis and treatment of language disorders. This model was embraced by other researchers of language and remains a standard approach in aphasia research today. As the field of cognitive neuropsychology matured, Saffran became recognized as one of its most influential practitioners. In 1989, her grant on the psycholinguistic analysis of language disorders was awarded the Claude Pepper Award of Excellence by th
National Institute on Deafness and Communication Disorders
In 1991, Saffran was appointed as professor in th

at Temple University. She continued teaching her courses even after progression of a degenerative condition had weakened her speaking voice and use of her hands. Her contributions to research were recognized posthumously when she was awarded the Temple University Faculty Research Award for excellence in research in 2003.http://www.temple.edu/temple_times_archives/2003/4-10-03/saffran.html Eleanor Saffran Receives Posthumous Research Award

Legacy

Longtime colleague

Nadine Martin Nadine may refer to: People * Nadine (given name) * Nadine, Countess of Shrewsbury (1913–2003), English opera soprano Film and TV * Nadine (1987 film), ''Nadine'' (1987 film), a 1987 film with Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger * , a 2007 Dutch fil ...

, associate professor of communication sciences and disorders at Temple University, started working with Saffran in 1982 and then completed her Ph.D. in

Cognitive Psychology Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of mental processes such as attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, creativity, and reasoning. Cognitive psychology originated in the 1960s in a break from behaviorism, which ...

at Temple University in 1987. Today she continues Saffran's tradition of scholarship and mentorship as Director of th
Eleanor M. Saffran Center for Cognitive Neuroscience
Her daughter Jenny Saffran has also pursued a career in research in cognitive science. She leads th
Infant Learning Laboratory
at University of Wisconsin–Madison.

List of important papers

* Saffran EM, Marin OS, Yeni-Komshian GH. (1976) An analysis of speech perception in word deafness. ''Brain and Language'', 3:209-28. * Saffran EM, Schwartz MF, Marin OS. (1980) The word order problem in agrammatism. II. Production. ''Brain and Language'', 10:263-80. * Saffran EM, Schwartz MF, Marin OS. (1980) The word order problem in agrammatism. I. Comprehension. ''Brain and Language'', 10:249-62.
Linebarger MC
Schwartz MF, Saffran EM. (1983) Sensitivity to grammatical structure in so-called agrammatic aphasics. ''Cognition'', 13:361-92.http://talkingbrains.blogspot.com/2007/11/top-10-most-importantinfluential-papers.html Top 10 Most Important/influential Papers in the Neuroscience of Language * Saffran EM, Berndt RS, Schwartz MF. (1989) The quantitative analysis of agrammatic production: procedure and data. ''Brain and Language''. 37:440-79. * Saffran EM, Schwartz MF. (1994) Impairment of sentence comprehension. ''Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences'', 346:47-53.
Dell GS
Schwartz MF, Martin N, Saffran EM, Gagnon DA. (1997) Lexical access in aphasic and nonaphasic speakers. ''Psychological Review'', 104:801-38. * Martin N, Saffran EM. (1997) Language and auditory-verbal short-term memory impairments: Evidence for common underlying processes. ''Cognitive Neuropsychology'', 14:641–682. * Saffran EM, Schwartz MF, Linebarger MC. (1998) Semantic influences on thematic role assignment: evidence from normals and aphasics. ''Brain and Language'', 62:255-97. * Saffran EM. (2000) The organization of semantic memory: in support of a distributed model. ''Brain and Language'', 71:204-12.

References

* Schwartz, M

& Martin, N. (2004)
In Memoriam: Eleanor M. Saffran''Brain and Language''
89:1-2. * Behrmann M, Patterson K. (Eds.) (2006) Words and Things: Cognitive Neuropsychological Studies in Tribute to Eleanor M. Saffran. A special issue of the journa
''Cognitive Neuropsychology''
Psychology Press.

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saffran, Eleanor American women psychologists 20th-century American psychologists American cognitive neuroscientists Neuropsychologists American women neuroscientists 20th-century American women scientists Speech perception researchers Temple University faculty 1938 births 2002 deaths American women academics