Wendell R. Garner (January 21, 1921 – August 14, 2008) was a Yale University psychology researcher credited with making significant contributions to the cognitive revolution, in which George Miller and others applied emerging research from the fields of artificial intelligence and computer science to test ideas about human mental processes.

Background

Garner was born January 21, 1921, in Buffalo, New York. He attended Franklin & Marshall College in

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. After graduating, he went on to Harvard University where he received a master's degree in 1943 and a doctoral degree in 1946. He met his spouse Barbara Ward Garner while working at Harvard's radar laboratory during World War II.

Career

In 1946, Garner moved to

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to join the faculty of Johns Hopkins University and from 1954 to 1964 chaired the school's psychology department, also serving as director the Institute for Cooperative Research that existed at the time. In 1967, Garner joined Yale's faculty as the James Rowland Angell Professor of Psychology, in time becoming chair of the Department of Psychology. He also was the dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences between 1978 and 1979. Garner's research helped crystallize concepts like channel capacity as applied to the cognitive revolution. According to the

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, he was best known for his ''Uncertainty and Structure as Psychological Concepts'', first published in 1962, which extended information theory into the field of psychology; his 1974 book ''The Processing of Information and Structure'', which addressed pattern perception and dimensional interaction; and ''Applied Experimental Psychology'', a textbook he coauthored in 1949.

Later years

In retirement, Garner and his spouse Barbara lived in Redding, Connecticut. He died August 14, 2008.

Awards

Garner won multiple awards during his career, including election to the

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in 1965; the American Psychological Association's Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award; the American Psychological Foundation's Gold Medal for Science of Psychology; the Warren Medal from the

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; Yale's Wilbur Cross Medal; and an honorary degree from Johns Hopkins.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Garner, Wendell 1921 births 2008 deaths 20th-century American psychologists American cognitive psychologists American consciousness researchers and theorists Franklin & Marshall College alumni Harvard University alumni Johns Hopkins University faculty Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Yale University faculty Scientists from Buffalo, New York People from Redding, Connecticut