The Psychology Book

IN CONTEXT

APPROACH

Attention theory

BEFORE

1640s René Descartes says the human body is a kind of machine with a mind, or soul.

1940s British psychologist and APU director Kenneth Craik prepares flow diagrams comparing human and artificial information processing.

AFTER

1959 George Armitage Miller’s studies suggest that short-term memory can hold a maximum of seven pieces of information.

1964 British psychologist Anne Treisman suggests that less important information is not eliminated at the filter stage but attenuated (like turning down the volume) so it can still be “shadowed” by the mind.

In Britain prior to World War II, psychology as an academic discipline ...