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Birth
Kenneth Craik was born 29 March 1914 in Edinburgh, Scotland. He attended Edinburgh Academy and Edinburgh University (Zangwill 1). -
Period: to
World War II in Europe
On 3 September 1939, Great Britain declared war on Germany. Germany surrendered on VE Day, 8 May 1945. Though Craik was ineligible for service, he spent the majority studying in a department that dedicated all of it’s research to the war, the department would later open an Applied Psychology Unit after Craik’s success and influence while assisting pilots in the Royal Air Force recognizing signs of sleep deprivation (Zangwill 2). -
Thesis
Craik submits his PhD thesis. It contains research and experiments on visual adaptation; a topic on which he would continue to peruse in graduate school, though more interested in philosophy. The thesis won him a fellowship at St. john’s College at Cambridge University the following year. Though his studies in this field were by no means revolutionary, his superb ingenuity in creating machines and models for his studies was noted (Zangwill 2). -
Craik’s Hypothesis described by Lord Adrian
Lord Edgar Adrian described Craik’s hypothesis in saying, “Craik seems to be saying that the organism carries in his head a small-scale of the external world and of his own possible actions in regard to it” (Zangwill 7). Craik’s theory was implying that the mind worked mechanically to make such predictions as he was critical of introspection and non physiological mechanisms. -
“The Nature of Explanation”
Craik publishes a short collection of entries, “The Nature of Explanation.” In his book he writes about his theory on mental models (Vincent). He hypothesizes that the human brain combines observed events with thoughts and reasoning to predict the next step one will make. Craik argues that the mind parallels working machines such as Kelvin’s tidal predictor (Zangwill 7). His idea would revolutionize cognitive science. -
Death
Kenneth Craik dies as the result of a cycling accident at only 31 years old. He only published one book and had began writing his second. The war in Europe would end the next day (Zangwill 2). -
“The Nature of Psychology”
More than 20 years after Craik’s death, Cambridge University combines several of his unpublished entries and publishes them in a book, “The Nature of Psychology” (Craik).
