Gordon Howard Bower (December 30, 1932 – June 17, 2020) was a

cognitive psychologist 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 he ...

studying

human memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered, ...

language comprehension Sentence processing takes place whenever a reader or listener processes a language utterance, either in isolation or in the context of a conversation or a text. Many studies of the human language comprehension process have focused on reading of s ...

, emotion, and behavior modification. He received his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

in learning theory from

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

in 1959. He held the A. R. Lang Emeritus Professorship at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

. In addition to his research, Bower also was a notable adviser to numerous students, including John R. Anderson, Lawrence W. Barsalou,

Lera Boroditsky Lera Boroditsky (born c.1976) is a cognitive scientist and professor in the fields of language and cognition. She is one of the main contributors to the theory of linguistic relativity. She is a Searle Scholar, a McDonnell Scholar, recipient of ...

Keith Holyoak Keith James Holyoak (born January 16, 1950) is a Canadian-American researcher in cognitive psychology and cognitive science, working on human thinking and reasoning. Holyoak's work focuses on the role of analogy in thinking. His work showed ho ...

Stephen Kosslyn Stephen Michael Kosslyn (born 1948) is an American psychologist and neuroscientist. Kosslyn is best known for his work on visual cognition and the science of learning. Kosslyn currently serves as the president of Active Learning Sciences Inc., w ...

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Mark A. Gluck Mark A. Gluck is a professor of neuroscience at Rutgers–Newark in New Jersey, director of the Rutgers Memory Disorders Project, and publisher of the public health newsletter, ''Memory Loss and the Brain''. He works at the interface between n ...

, and

Robert Sternberg Robert J. Sternberg (born December 8, 1949) is an American psychologist and psychometrician. He is Professor of Human Development at Cornell University. Sternberg has a BA from Yale University and a PhD from Stanford University, under advisor ...

, among others. He was voted number 42 in the list of most notable psychologists of the 20th century, published by the ''Review of General Psychology''. He was awarded the

National Medal of Science The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral and social scienc ...

in 2005.

General Information

Gordon H. Bower was a cognitive social psychologist. His main areas of study include human memory,

mnemonic A mnemonic ( ) device, or memory device, is any learning technique that aids information retention or retrieval (remembering) in the human memory for better understanding. Mnemonics make use of elaborative encoding, retrieval cues, and imag ...

devices, retrieval strategies, recording strategies, and

category learning Concept learning, also known as category learning, concept attainment, and concept formation, is defined by Bruner, Goodnow, & Austin (1967) as "the search for and listing of attributes that can be used to distinguish exemplars from non exemplars ...

. He was interested in

cognitive processes Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...

emotion Emotions are mental states brought on by neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or displeasure. There is currently no scientific consensus on a definition. ...

, imagery, language and

reading comprehension Reading comprehension is the ability to process text, understand its meaning, and to integrate with what the reader already knows. Fundamental skills required in efficient reading comprehension are knowing meaning of words, ability to understand ...

as they relate to memory. He was married to Sharon, the founder of a communication consulting firm who has published three self-help books on speech anxiety. Together, they have three children.Bower, G. H. (2007). Gordon H. Bower. In G. Lindzey, W. M. Runyan, G. Lindzey, W. M. Runyan (Eds.), A history of psychology in autobiography, Vol. IX (pp. 77-113). Washington, DC US: American Psychological Association.

Early life

Bower was born on December 30, 1932, in

Scio, Ohio Scio is a village in Harrison County, Ohio, United States. The population was 763 at the 2010 census. History Scio was originally called New Market, and under the latter name was platted in 1852. Geography According to the United States Census ...

, to Clyde Ward and Mabel (Bosart). His father worked as a grocery store owner and his mother was a teacher. During high school, he was encouraged by his teachers to pursue a career in psychiatry. Out of high school, he accepted a four-year scholarship to play baseball at Cleveland's

Western Reserve University Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

and during his freshman year, began working in the Cleveland State Mental Hospital. In order to avoid the military draft, Bower opted for graduate school, but his experiences in the mental hospital dissuaded him from a career as a psychiatrist. While Bower was attending Yale for his degree in Experimental Psychology, under Neal Miller, he discovered a passion for learning theory and presented his findings on dual reward-punishment in rats to the American Psychological Association. During this time, he and Bill Estes also revised

Edward Tolman Edward Chace Tolman (April 14, 1886 – November 19, 1959) was an American psychologist and a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. Through Tolman's theories and works, he founded what is now a branch of psychology kno ...

's vicarious trial and error model to include human choices among commodity options. Bower married Sharon Anthony on January 30, 1957.

Career

Bower earned his Ph.D. in psychology from Yale University in 1959 and was hired at the

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...

Psychology Department. Until the late 1960s, he continued the animal research he had begun as a graduate student, but when Bill Estes and Dick Atkinson joined the faculty, his focus shifted to mathematical models of memory. One model they produced explained "hypothesis testing behavior of subjects learning very simple classifications (concepts) in the standard trial-by-trial procedures that overtaxed memory." After wearying of studying models of memory, Bower shifted his focus to study

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 ...

. He worked on a team that created both the time-decay queuing model and the fixed-space displacement model to describe how items in short-term memory might be lost before they could be encoded in

long-term memory Long-term memory (LTM) is the stage of the Atkinson–Shiffrin memory model in which informative knowledge is held indefinitely. It is defined in contrast to short-term and working memory, which persist for only about 18 to 30 seconds. Long-t ...

. This spawned into research into how organizational devices could expand the capacity of short-term memory past the traditional 7 items. A particular mnemonic device that Bower researched that is still popular today is chunking, in which a person groups objects together to improve memory. His works during this time also included the huge benefits of mnemonic aids and how these aids are often converted into visual images, human associative memory and propositional learning, state dependent memory, connectionist modeling for categorical learning, and how we remember narratives. In 1979 he was honored with the Award for Distinguished Scientific Contribution by the American Psychological Association. In 2005, Bower took emeritus status from Stanford and received the President's

. Bower died on June 17, 2020 at his home in Stanford, California.

References

Sources

APA Historical Database

External links

* Mark A. Gluck, John R. Anderson & Stephen M. Kosslyn, ''Memory and Mind. A Festschrift for Gordon H. Bower'', 2007
Festschrift
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bower, Gordon H 1932 births 2020 deaths American cognitive psychologists Memory researchers Fellows of the Society of Experimental Psychologists Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Stanford University Department of Psychology faculty National Medal of Science laureates Scientists from Ohio Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences People from Harrison County, Ohio Fellows of the Cognitive Science Society Members of the American Philosophical Society