The Cognition Project Computers and Memory: Richard Atkinson
Mar 18, 2026
Richard Atkinson, cognitive psychologist and university leader who helped define human memory research. He recalls early computational and information-theory influences. He describes military computing and Monte Carlo simulations. He traces formal models of storage and retrieval and the founding of UC San Diego’s cognitive science efforts.
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Early Hand Calculator Work That Foreshadowed Chaos
- Richard Atkinson recounts computing early work with Nicholas Rushefsky where he manually computed logistic function trials on a hand calculator.
- Those computations sometimes produced chaotic behavior that later fed into foundations of chaos theory and shaped his mathematical perspective.
Army Post Led to Early Computer Simulation Experience
- Atkinson describes his Army assignment at the Naval Postgraduate School where he gained hands-on experience using early computers and building simulations.
- He programmed Monte Carlo simulations and military games, tackling random number generator issues long before widespread university computing.
Summer Institutes Connected Him To Cognitive Pioneers
- Atkinson recalls summers at Stanford and RAND interacting with pioneers like George Miller, Noam Chomsky, Bill Estes, and Herb Simon.
- Those interactions influenced his shift from stimulus sampling theory toward models of memory culminating in his 1968 work.