Richard Atkinson’s pioneering work at Stanford University on learning, cognition, and memory brought together the emerging fields of mathematical psychology and computer modeling. In the mid-1960s, he began publishing a series of papers with his graduate students and postgraduate fellows that formed the foundation for a cognitive theory of human memory. The most important of these was a 1968 paper titled “Human Memory: A Proposed System and Its Control Processes,” co-authored with then-graduate student Richard Shiffrin. The general theory that Atkinson and Shiffrin proposed has withstood decades of empirical testing. In 2024 the original paper was reformatted and published anew in the Journal of Memory and Language, along with an essay by John Wixted, who argues that despite the theory’s long influence, “Largely missing from the historical record is the broader theoretical perspective proposed by Atkinson and Shiffrin . . . one that is surprisingly consistent with contemporary views of human memory.”

In 2019, the journal Memory and Cognition devoted a special issue to “Five Decades of Cumulative Progress in Understanding Human Memory and Its Control Processes Inspired by Atkinson and Shiffrin.” Their research is also the subject of a 2024 book, Human Memory: The General Theory and Its Various Models by Kenneth Malmberg.

This collection of scientific papers also includes Atkinson’s research with his Stanford colleague Patrick Suppes on computer-assisted instruction; his writings on US science policy and the indispensable role the research university plays in the American scientific enterprise; and reflections on the 2001 national controversy sparked by his challenge to the use of the SAT in college admissions.