Episodes

  • More to Memory: Elizabeth Loftus
    Jun 12 2026

    The Cognition Project is an oral history of cognitive science. Created and hosted by Tom Griffiths, the head of Princeton’s AI Lab and a professor of psychology and computer science.


    This episode is about Elizabeth Loftus, who grew disenchanted with mathematical psychology and went on to create a new field, studying the psychology of eyewitness testimony.



    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    17 mins
  • A Student of Memory: Richard Shiffrin
    Apr 8 2026

    The Cognition Project is an oral history of cognitive science. Created and hosted by Tom Griffiths, the head of Princeton’s AI Lab and a professor of psychology and computer science.


    This episode is with Richard Shiffrin, who offers a student’s perspective on the cognitive psychology scene at Stanford in the 1960s. He worked with Gordon Bower and Richard Atkinson and went on to become one of the most influential researchers studying human memory.



    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    21 mins
  • Seeking Universal Laws: Roger Shepard
    Apr 1 2026

    The Cognition Project is an oral history of cognitive science. Created and hosted by Tom Griffiths, the head of Princeton’s AI Lab and a professor of psychology and computer science.


    This episode is about Roger Shepard, who created innovative methods to let us peek inside people’s heads. He ultimately used those tools to propose psychology’s first universal law.



    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    1 hr and 17 mins
  • From Rats to Hypotheses: Gordon Bower
    Mar 27 2026

    The Cognition Project is an oral history of cognitive science. Created and hosted by Tom Griffiths, the head of Princeton’s AI Lab and a professor of psychology and computer science.


    Continuing to trace the development of cognitive psychology, this episode tells the story of Gordon Bower. At a time when psychologists still had to demonstrate that this new approach to their science could offer insights that went beyond merely studying behavior, Bower devised clever methods for revealing the complexity of human minds.



    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    48 mins
  • Computers and Memory: Richard Atkinson
    Mar 18 2026

    The Cognition Project is an oral history of cognitive science. Created and hosted by Tom Griffiths, the head of Princeton’s AI Lab and a professor of psychology and computer science.


    This episode is with Richard Atkinson, who did groundbreaking work exploring the structure of human memory before going on to be the Director of the National Science Foundation, Chancellor of UC San Diego, and ultimately President of the entire University of California.



    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    18 mins
  • Heading West: Dan Slobin
    Mar 11 2026

    The Cognition Project is an oral history of cognitive science. Created and hosted by Tom Griffiths, the head of Princeton’s AI Lab and a professor of psychology and computer science.


    This episode is the story of Dan Slobin, who offers both a perspective on the East Coast origins of cognitive science and how it evolved on the West Coast.



    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    1 hr and 7 mins
  • Chomsky, Chimpsky, and Beyond: Tom Bever
    Mar 6 2026

    The Cognition Project is an oral history of cognitive science. Created and hosted by Tom Griffiths, the head of Princeton’s AI Lab and a professor of psychology and computer science.


    This episode is with Tom Bever, who took a circuitous path that led him through several important events in the cognitive revolution. Bever ultimately became an influential psycholinguist in his own right.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    1 hr and 24 mins
  • From Wugs to Chatbots: Jean Berko Gleason
    Feb 26 2026

    The Cognition Project is an oral history of cognitive science. Created and hosted by Tom Griffiths, the head of Princeton’s AI Lab and a professor of psychology and computer science.


    This episode is the story of Jean Berko Gleason, who was a student at Harvard just as new ideas about studying language and the mind were emerging. Her work revealed that even young children seem to internalize the rules of language, an idea that we are going to revisit when artificial neural networks come into the story. Those artificial neural networks power today’s AI chatbots, but Berko Gleason remains skeptical.



    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    1 hr and 2 mins