A Culture of Innovation Insider Accounts of Computing and Life at BBN

[26] part i. founders and the early days in computing
3.5 Psychology at BBN
To advance the psychoacoustics and human-factors efforts, Licklider recruited (best
friend/best man) Karl Kryter, W. Dewey Neff, and Vincent Sharkey—all formerly fellow
graduate students of his in psychology at the University of Rochester. Kryter came from
a laboratory at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland (he was earlier at Harvard’s PAL) to
develop programs in speechandeffects of noise. 18 Neff came from Indiana University
to pursue his work in “physiological acoustics,” with cats andmonkeys asexperimental
subjects. 19 Sharkey came from the Air Force Cambridge Research Center todevelop
work onhumanfactors. 20 Ken Stevens began contributing to the speech effort then and
continued to do so for several decades.
To begin work specifically on man-machine integration, Licklider was joined by two
of his former doctoral studentsat MIT. Thomas Marill, with a doctoralthesisonauditory
signal detection, had since worked for two years evaluating the SAGE system at Lincoln
Laboratory. Jerome Elkind, who held anelectrical engineering undergraduate degree
from MIT and received an interdepartmental Sc.D. with athesis onhumantracking
behavior (manual control), had spent the previous few years at an RCA laboratory in the
Cambridge area. (We can note that both theses were outgrowths of the concern for the
human factorinwarfare.) Marill did fundamental work incomputersat BBN, particularly
in artificial intelligence (described below), and managed its first computer department.
Elkind created a research activity in human control processes that continues today (see
Baron in this volume, Chapter 9) and from 1964 to 1969 he largely managed — though
he and I were nominally co-directors — adivision that included the by-then-several
departments in computers and psychology.
David Green and Ijoined BBN one day a week in 1958 while assistant professors of
psychology at MIT. Licklider had brought us to MIT from the University of Michigan,
where we conducted doctoral theses in visual and auditory signal detection, in the
psychology department and the psychophysics laboratory of the Electronic Defense
Group. The laboratory was headed by Wilson P. Tanner, Jr., a fellow graduate student
in psychology but older and our mentor. During the early years at BBN, Green worked
across the spectrum of psychoacoustics, manual control, educational technology, and
pattern recognition. I worked in psychoacoustics, including an application to sound
identification (such as in sonar) of computer-based instruction, and in pattern recognition.
In 1962, when Licklider took a leave from BBN (described later), I obtained a
leave from MIT and took over for him projects oncomputer-based instruction and
computer-based libraries.
Green and I set up a computer-centered laboratory for signal detection research
(see Figure 3.1) and obtained contract support to write abookonthe topic. 21 Later,
he was active in BBN’s psychoacoustics department in the Los Angeles office while a
professor at the University of California at San Diego, and then again in the Cambridge
office while aprofessor at Harvard. 22 I stayed at BBN after my MIT leave expired and
held several positions, including senior vice-president; general manager of research,
development, and consulting; and member of the board of directors (all from 1970–74);
and chief scientist for information sciences (1975–98). 23
Licklider had a knack for attracting people to join his various endeavors:
“Lick[lider] collected people,” says his former student Tom Marill, who was struck
by the way his mentor always tried to bring his favorites along as he moved from
place to place. “He was very bright, he was very articulate, and because of that he
was able to get very good people. They liked being collected.” 24
Not being able to leave it at that, I add that he was modest, generous, always in high