ABSTRACT
As an undergraduate at Cornell University, I studied linguistics. But I had time for a little bit of psychology, so I enrolled in Dick Neisser’s course, Attention and Memory. This was my first systematic exposure to psychological research methods, and I was fascinated. Neisser often asked for volunteers to participate in graduate student research, and I was always willing. The critical experiment for my career involved a study of iconic memory. My data were unusual enough that the graduate student decided Dr. Neisser would want to talk with me himself. And so I went to Dr. Neisser’s office, where we had a long discussion about iconic memory and visual perception, as his dog, Max, lounged contentedly nearby. Although my primary interest remained linguistics, I continued to meet with Dick to discuss research methods.
