Below are some notable researchers in cognitive science.

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{{columns-list, colwidth=25em, * Edith Ackermann * John Robert Anderson *

David Ausubel David Paul Ausubel (October 25, 1918 – July 9, 2008) was an American psychologist. His most significant contribution to the fields of educational psychology, cognitive science, and science education learning was on the development and research o ...

Alan Baddeley Alan David Baddeley CBE FRS, is a British psychologist. He is known for his research on memory and for developing the three-component model of working memory. He is a professor of psychology at the University of York. Biography Baddeley was ...

Paul Baltes Paul B. Baltes (18 June 1939 – 7 November 2006) was a German psychologist whose broad scientific agenda was devoted to establishing and promoting the life-span orientation of human development. He was also a theorist in the field of the psycholo ...

Simon Baron-Cohen Sir Simon Philip Baron-Cohen (born 15 August 1958) is a British clinical psychologist and professor of developmental psychopathology at the University of Cambridge. He is the director of the university's Autism Research Centre and a Fellow o ...

* Lawrence Barsalou *

Frederic Bartlett Sir Frederic Charles Bartlett FRS (20 October 1886 – 30 September 1969) was a British psychologist and the first professor of experimental psychology at the University of Cambridge. He was one of the forerunners of cognitive psychology as wel ...

Aaron T. Beck Aaron Temkin Beck (July 18, 1921 – November 1, 2021) was an American psychiatrist who was a professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania.

* Nikolai Aleksandrovich Bernstein *

Jerome Bruner Jerome Seymour Bruner (October 1, 1915 – June 5, 2016) was an American psychologist who made significant contributions to human cognitive psychology and cognitive learning theory in educational psychology. Bruner was a senior research fellow at ...

David Buss David Michael Buss (born April 14, 1953) is an American evolutionary psychologist at the University of Texas at Austin, researching human sex differences in mate selection. He is considered one of the founders of evolutionary psychology. Bio ...

* Susan Carey * Michael Cole *

Allan M. Collins Allan M. Collins is an American Cognitive Science, cognitive scientist, Professor Emeritus of Learning Sciences at Northwestern University, Northwestern University's School of Education and Social Policy. His research is recognized as having broad ...

* Fergus I. M. Craik *

Kenneth Craik Kenneth James William Craik (; 1914 – 1945) was a Scottish philosopher and psychologist. Life He was born in Edinburgh on 29 March 1914, the son of James Craik, a solicitor. The family lived at 13 Abercromby Place in Edinburgh's Second N ...

* James E. Cutting * James Deese *

Andreas Demetriou Andreas Demetriou ( el, Ανδρέας Δημητρίου; born Andreas Panteli Demetriou on 15 August 1950) is a Greek Cypriot developmental psychologist and former Minister of Education and Culture of Cyprus. Founding Fellow and current p ...

* Merlin Donald * Hermann Ebbinghaus *

Albert Ellis Albert Ellis (September 27, 1913 – July 24, 2007) was an American psychologist and psychotherapist who founded rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT). He held MA and PhD degrees in clinical psychology from Columbia University, and was certi ...

Leon Festinger Leon Festinger (8 May 1919 – 11 February 1989) was an American social psychologist who originated the theory of cognitive dissonance and social comparison theory. The rejection of the previously dominant behaviorist view of social psychology ...

Reuven Feuerstein Reuven Feuerstein (Hebrew: ראובן פוירשטיין; August 21, 1921 – April 29, 2014) was a Romanian-born Israeli clinical, developmental, and cognitive psychologist, known for his theory of intelligence which states “''it is not ‘fixe ...

* Kurt W. Fischer * John H. Flavell * Diana Fleischman *

Uta Frith Dame Uta Frith (''née'' Aurnhammer; born 25 May 1941) is a German-British developmental psychologist at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London. She has pioneered much of the current research into autism and dysle ...

* Eugene Galanter *

Howard Gardner Howard Earl Gardner (born July 11, 1943) is an American developmental psychologist and the John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Research Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education at Harvard University. He is curr ...

* Rochel Gelman *

Dedre Gentner Dedre Dariel Gentner (born 1944) is an American cognitive and developmental psychologist. She is the Alice Gabriel Twight Professor of Psychology at Northwestern University. She is a leading researcher in the study of analogical reasoning. Wor ...

Alison Gopnik Alison Gopnik (born June 16, 1955) is an American professor of psychology and affiliate professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. She is known for her work in the areas of cognitive and language development, specializing ...

Vittorio Guidano Vittorio Filippo Guidano (4 August 1944, Rome, Italy – 31 August 1999, Buenos Aires, Argentina) was an Italian neuropsychiatrist, creator of the cognitive procedural systemic model and contributor to constructivist post-rationalist cognitive ...

Francesca Happé Francesca Gabrielle Elizabeth Happé (born 1967) is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and Director of the MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College Lond ...

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 ...

Philip Johnson-Laird Philip Nicholas Johnson-Laird, FRS, FBA (born 12 October 1936) is a philosopher of language and reasoning and a developer of the mental model theory of reasoning. He was a professor at Princeton University's Department of Psychology, as well a ...

* Daniel Kahneman * Annette Karmiloff-Smith * George Kelly *

Kurt Koffka Kurt Koffka (March 12, 1886 – November 22, 1941) was a German psychologist and professor. He was born and educated in Berlin, Germany; he died in Northampton, Massachusetts from coronary thrombosis. He was influenced by his maternal uncle, ...

Wolfgang Köhler Wolfgang Köhler (21 January 1887 – 11 June 1967) was a German psychologist and phenomenologist who, like Max Wertheimer and Kurt Koffka, contributed to the creation of Gestalt psychology. During the Nazi regime in Germany, he prote ...

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 ...

* Robert L. Leahy * Alan M. Leslie *

Elizabeth Loftus Elizabeth F. Loftus (born 1944) is an American psychologist who is best known in relation to the misinformation effect, false memory and criticism of recovered memory therapies. Loftus's research includes the effects of phrasing on the percep ...

George Mandler George Mandler (June 11, 1924 – May 6, 2016) was an Austrian-born American psychologist, who became a distinguished professor of psychology at the University of California, San Diego. Career Mandler was born in Vienna, Austria in 1924. He re ...

* James McClelland * Kathleen McDermott * Jacques Mehler * Andrew Meltzoff * David E. Meyer * Geoffrey Miller * George A. Miller * Naomi Miyake *

Ken Nakayama Ken Nakayama is an American psychologist and prior to retirement was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He is known for his work on prosopagnosia, an inability to recognize faces, and super recognisers, people with sign ...

Ulric Neisser Ulric Richard Gustav Neisser (December 8, 1928 – February 17, 2012) was a German-American psychologist, Cornell University professor, and member of the US National Academy of Sciences. He has been referred to as the "father of cognitive p ...

* Robert A. Neimeyer *

Allan Paivio Allan Urho Paivio (March 29, 1925 – June 19, 2016) was a professor of psychology at the University of Western Ontario and former bodybuilder. He earned his Ph.D. from McGill University in 1959 and taught at the University of Western Ontario ...

* Elizabeth A. Phelps *

Jean Piaget Jean William Fritz Piaget (, , ; 9 August 1896 – 16 September 1980) was a Swiss psychologist known for his work on child development. Piaget's theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are together called "genetic epistemolo ...

Steven Pinker Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a Canadian-American cognitive psychologist, psycholinguist, popular science author, and public intellectual. He is an advocate of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind. ...

* Michael Posner * Patricia Resick * Frank Ritter * Henry L. Roediger III *

Eleanor Rosch Eleanor Rosch (once known as Eleanor Rosch Heider;"Natural Categories", Cognitive Psychology, Vol. 4, No. 3, (May 1973), p. 328. born 1938) is an American psychologist. She is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, s ...

David Rumelhart David Everett Rumelhart (June 12, 1942 – March 13, 2011) was an American psychologist who made many contributions to the formal analysis of human cognition, working primarily within the frameworks of mathematical psychology, symbolic artif ...

* Daniel Schacter * Erwin Segal *

Otto Selz Otto is a masculine German given name and a surname. It originates as an Old High German short form (variants ''Audo'', '' Odo'', ''Udo'') of Germanic names beginning in ''aud-'', an element meaning "wealth, prosperity". The name is recorded f ...

Roger Shepard Roger Newland Shepard (January 30, 1929 – May 30, 2022) was an American cognitive scientist and author of the "universal law of generalization" (1987). He was considered a father of research on spatial relations. He studied mental rotation, an ...

Richard Shiffrin Richard Shiffrin (born March 13, 1942) is an American psychologist, professor of cognitive science in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Indiana University, Indiana University, Bloomington. Shiffrin has contributed a number of t ...

* Linda B. Smith *

Maggie Snowling Margaret Jean Snowling (born 15 July 1955) is a British psychologist, and world-leading expert in language difficulties, including dyslexia. From 2012 to 2022 she was List of Presidents of St John's College, Oxford, President of St John's Colle ...

Elizabeth Spelke Elizabeth Shilin Spelke FBA (born May 28, 1949) is an American cognitive psychologist at the Department of Psychology of Harvard University and director of the Laboratory for Developmental Studies. Starting in the 1980s, she carried out experi ...

George Sperling George Sperling (born 1934) is an American cognitive psychologist, researcher, and educator. Sperling documented the existence of iconic memory (one of the sensory memory subtypes). Through several experiments, he showed support for his hypothe ...

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 ...

* Saul Sternberg * Esther Thelen *

Edward C. 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 know ...

Michael Tomasello Michael Tomasello (born January 18, 1950) is an American developmental and comparative psychologist, as well as a linguist. He is professor of psychology at Duke University. Earning many prizes and awards from the end of the 1990s onward, he is c ...

Anne Treisman Anne Marie Treisman (née Taylor; 27 February 1935 – 9 February 2018) was an English psychologist who specialised in cognitive psychology. Treisman researched visual attention, object perception, and memory. One of her most influential ideas ...

Endel Tulving Endel Tulving (born May 26, 1927) is an Estonian-born Canadian experimental psychologist and cognitive neuroscientist. In his research on human memory he proposed the distinction between semantic and episodic memory. Tulving is a professor emerit ...

Jaan Valsiner Jaan Valsiner (born June 29, 1951 in Tallinn, Estonia) is an Estonian-American professor of developmental and cultural psychology, the recipient of Alexander von Humboldt Prize (1995) for his interdisciplinary work on human development and 2017 ...

Lev Vygotsky Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky (russian: Лев Семёнович Выго́тский, p=vɨˈɡotskʲɪj; be, Леў Сямёнавіч Выго́цкі, p=vɨˈɡotskʲɪj; – June 11, 1934) was a Soviet psychologist, known for his work on ps ...

Adrian Wells Adrian Wells, Doctor of Philosophy, PhD, CPsychol, is a British Clinical psychology, clinical psychologist who is the creator of metacognitive therapy. He is Professor of Clinical and Experimental Psychopathology at the University of Manchester, ...

Max Wertheimer Max Wertheimer (April 15, 1880 – October 12, 1943) was an Austro-Hungarian psychologist who was one of the three founders of Gestalt psychology, along with Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Köhler. He is known for his book, ''Productive Thinking'', and ...

David Wechsler David Wechsler (; January 12, 1896 – May 2, 1981) was a Romanian-American psychologist. He developed well-known intelligence scales, such as the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC). A ...

* Jeffrey E. Young * Pyotr Zinchenko

Other categories

* Alfredo Ardila (neuroscience, neuropsychology, anthropology, evolution of cognition) *

Scott Atran Scott Atran (born February 6, 1952) is an American-French cultural anthropologist who is Emeritus Director of Research in Anthropology at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique in Paris, Research Professor at the University of Michigan, ...

(cognitive anthropology) *

Joscha Bach Joscha Bach (born 1973 in Weimar, Germany) is a German artificial intelligence researcher and cognitive scientist focusing on cognitive architectures, mental representation, emotion, social modeling, and multi-agent systems. Early life and educ ...

(cognitive science) *

(psychology, social anthropology) * Justin L. Barrett (cognitive psychology, cognitive anthropology) *

Marc Bekoff Marc Bekoff (born September 6, 1945 in Brooklyn, NY) is an American biologist, ethologist, behavioural ecologist and writer. He was a professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado Boulder for 32 years. He cofounded ...

(biology, cognitive ethology, behavioral ecology) *

Maurice Bloch Maurice Émile Félix Bloch (born 21 October 1939 in Caen, Calvados, France) is a British anthropologist. He is famous for his fieldwork on the shift of agriculturalists in Madagascar, Japan and other parts of the world, and has also contribut ...

(cognitive anthropology) * Maggie Boden (cognitive science) *

Pascal Boyer Pascal Robert Boyer is a French-American cognitive anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist, mostly known for his work in the cognitive science of religion. He taught at the University of Cambridge for eight years, before taking up the posit ...

(cognitive anthropology) * Per Aage Brandt (cognitive semiotics) *

Brian Butterworth Brian Lewis Butterworth FBA (born 3 January 1944) is emeritus professor of cognitive neuropsychology in the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, England. His research has ranged from speech errors and pauses, sho ...

(speech, dyslexia, mathematics) * Michael Cole (comparative cognition, cognitive psychology, cultural psychology) * Frederick L. Coolidge (evolutionary cognitive archaeology, cognitive evolution, behavior genetics) * Roy D'Andrade (cognitive anthropology) *

Terrence Deacon Terrence William Deacon (born 1950) is an American neuroanthropologist (Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology, Harvard University 1984). He taught at Harvard for eight years, relocated to Boston University in 1992, and is currently Professor of Anth ...

(neuroanthropology, linguistics) * Merlin Donald (psychology, anthropology, historical evolution of cognition) *

Fernando Flores Carlos Fernando Flores Labra (born January 9, 1943) is a Chilean engineer, entrepreneur and politician. He is a former cabinet minister of president Salvador Allende and was senator for the Arica and Parinacota and Tarapacá regions between 20 ...

(computer science, philosophy) *

John Gowlett John Anthony Jamys Gowlett, FBA, FSA, FRAI, is an archaeologist. Since 2000, he has been Professor of Archaeology and Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Liverpool. He completed his doctorate at the University of Cambridge, which was a ...

(evolutionary cognitive archaeology, evolutionary anthropology) * Christopher Robert Hallpike (anthropology) *

Yuval Noah Harari Yuval Noah Harari ( he, יובל נח הררי ; born 1976) is an Israeli historian and professor in the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the author of the popular science bestsellers '' Sapiens: A Brief History ...

(cognitive evolution, philosophy of artificial intelligence) *

Brian Hare Brian Hare is a professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke University. He researches the evolution of cognition by studying both humans, our close relatives the primates (especially bonobos and chimpanzees), and species whose cognition converg ...

(evolutionary anthropology, evolution of cognition) *

Friedrich Hayek Friedrich August von Hayek ( , ; 8 May 189923 March 1992), often referred to by his initials F. A. Hayek, was an Austrian–British economist, legal theorist and philosopher who is best known for his defense of classical liberalism. Haye ...

(cognitive psychology, philosophy of perception) *

Cecilia Heyes Cecilia Heyes (born 6 March 1960) is a British psychologist who studies the evolution of the human mind. She is a Senior Research Fellow in Theoretical Life Sciences at All Souls College, and a Professor of Psychology at the University of Oxford ...

(cognitive evolution) * Ludwig Huber (cognitive evolution, cognitive biology) * Thomas Huffman (ideational cognitive archaeology) * Edwin Hutchins (cognitive anthropology) *

Paul Jorion Paul Jorion (born 22 July 1946 in Brussels) is by training an anthropologist, sociologist with a special interest in the cognitive sciences. He has also written seven books on capitalist economics. Paul was born and raised in Belgium, and has ...

(anthropology, sociology) * George Lakoff (linguistic anthropology) * Jean Lave (situated cognition, social anthropology) *

Stephen C. Levinson Stephen C. Levinson FBA (born 6 December 1947)LEVINSON, Prof. Stephen Curtis

(linguistics, anthropology, psychology) *

David Lewis-Williams James David Lewis-Williams (born 1934) is a South African archaeologist. He is best known for his research on southern African San (Bushmen) rock art, of which it can be said that he found a 'Rosetta Stone'. He is the founder and previous direct ...

(ideational cognitive archaeology) * Aleksandr Luria (psychology, neuroscience, anthropology) * Lambros Malafouris (evolutionary cognitive archaeology, philosophy of mind) *

Humberto Maturana Humberto Maturana Romesín (September 14, 1928 – May 6, 2021) was a Chilean biologist and philosopher. Many consider him a member of a group of second-order cybernetics theoreticians such as Heinz von Foerster, Gordon Pask, Herbert Brün ...

(neuroscience, biology of cognition, philosophy) *

Douglas Medin Douglas L. "Doug" Medin (born June 13, 1944) is the Louis W. Menk Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He is also Professor Emeritus of Education and Social Policy. Early life and education Medin firs ...

(cognitive psychology, anthropology) *

Steven Mithen Steven Mithen, (born 16 October 1960) is a Professor of Archaeology at the University of Reading. He has written a number of books, including ''The Singing Neanderthals'' and ''The Prehistory of the Mind: The Cognitive Origins of Art, Religion ...

(ideational cognitive archaeology) * Rafael E. Núñez (philosophy of mathematics, linguistics, anthropology) * Karenleigh A. Overmann (evolutionary cognitive archaeology, cognitive evolution, ethnomathematics, numeracy, literacy) *

Zenon Pylyshyn Zenon Walter Pylyshyn (; 25 August 1937–6 December 2022) was a Canadian cognitive scientist and philosopher. He was a Canada Council Senior Fellow from 1963 to 1964. Pylyshyn's research generally involved the theoretical analysis of the nat ...

(engineering, psychology, philosophy) * Naomi Quinn (cognitive anthropology) * Colin Renfrew (evolutionary cognitive archaeology, neuroarchaeology) * Bradd Shore (cognitive anthropology) *

Richard Shweder Richard Allan Shweder (born 1945) is an American cultural anthropologist and a figure in cultural psychology. He is currently Harold H. Swift Distinguished Service Professor of Human Development in the Department of Comparative Human Development a ...

(cognitive anthropology) *

Dan Sperber Dan Sperber (born 20 June 1942 in Cagnes-sur-Mer) is a French social and cognitive scientist and philosopher. His most influential work has been in the fields of cognitive anthropology, linguistic pragmatics, psychology of reasoning, and phil ...

(cognitive anthropology) *

Joshua Tenenbaum Joshua Brett Tenenbaum (Josh Tenenbaum) is Professor of Computational Cognitive Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is known for contributions to mathematical psychology and Bayesian cognitive science. According to the MacA ...

(computer science, psychology) * Hideto Tomabechi (brain science, psychophysics, bioinformatics, intelligent informatics, speech recognition, cognitive neuro-engineering) *

Francisco Varela Francisco Javier Varela García (September 7, 1946 – May 28, 2001) was a Chilean biologist, philosopher, cybernetician, and neuroscientist who, together with his mentor Humberto Maturana, is best known for introducing the concept of autopoiesi ...

(neuroscience, philosophy) *

Frans de Waal Franciscus Bernardus Maria "Frans" de Waal (born October 29, 1948) is a Dutch primatologist and ethologist. He is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Primate Behavior in the Department of Psychology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, ...

(ethology, primatology, psychology) *

Étienne Wenger __NOTOC__ Étienne Charles Wenger (born 1952) is an educational theorist and practitioner, best known for his formulation (with Jean Lave) of the theory of situated cognition and his more recent work in the field of communities of practice. L ...

(situated cognition, education) * James V. Wertsch (cognitive psychology, cultural anthropology) * Douglas White (anthropology) * Harvey Whitehouse (social anthropology, cognitive psychology, cultural psychology) *

Richard Wrangham Richard Walter Wrangham (born 1948) is an English anthropologist and primatologist; he is Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University. His research and writing have involved ape behavior, human evolution, violence, and cooking. ...

(evolutionary anthropology) * Thomas G. Wynn (evolutionary cognitive archaeology, cognitive evolution, neuroaesthetics) *

Eviatar Zerubavel Eviatar Zerubavel (born 1948) is professor of sociology at Rutgers University, a specialist in the sociology of cognition and everyday life, including topics such as time, boundaries, and categorization. Biography Zerubavel is a grandson of ...

(cognitive sociology)

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