I was fortunate enough to take a cognitive psych grad seminar from him in the 90s, co-taught by his wife, Anne Treisman. He always seemed given to thinking a little more deeply in the moment than most people do.
One half-joking comment he made about science in the real world vs some idealized notion of it has always stuck with me. In a discussion about whether the results of some paper conflicted with some model or theory of cognition, he mused that scientific progress in psychology (and other non-hard sciences) was really about embarrassing rivals with competing models. No high-level model was ever stated precisely enough to rule out some particular finding; you could always tweak your theory a little to accommodate it. It's just that at some point, you might be too embarrassed to do so.
I did a Cog Sci bachelor and this is the conclusion I made I finished my studies. A lot of Thinking Fast and Slow are summaries of research done in the field over decades. In particular, biases and intuition as internalized knowledge/expertise. Sure you can complain about replication issues but this is the best model when it comes to minds that I know of.
> He always seemed given to thinking a little more deeply in the moment than most people do.
"As soon as you present a problem to me, I have some ready-made answer. Those ready-made answers get in the way of clear thinking, and we can’t help but have them." – Daniel Kahneman
One half-joking comment he made about science in the real world vs some idealized notion of it has always stuck with me. In a discussion about whether the results of some paper conflicted with some model or theory of cognition, he mused that scientific progress in psychology (and other non-hard sciences) was really about embarrassing rivals with competing models. No high-level model was ever stated precisely enough to rule out some particular finding; you could always tweak your theory a little to accommodate it. It's just that at some point, you might be too embarrassed to do so.