2007 INDUCTEE Endel Tulving, PhD Brain & Mind

Endel Tulving inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame

London, Ontario

Dr. Tulving was appointed the Tanenbaum Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience, Rotman Research Institute of Baycrest Centre

This post-retirement work began a second career as a neuroscientist. In 2007, at the age of 80, Dr. Tulving continued to publish ground-breaking work at the Institute.

Dr. Tulving published his book “Elements of Episodic Memory"

In it, Tulving described five distinct memory systems.

After a brief period of five years as Professor at Yale University, Dr. Tulving returned to University of Toronto and became Chair of the Department of Psychology

He remained at the University of Toronto until his retirement in 1992.

Dr. Tulving published a book chapter in which he argued that memory for specific events and memory for general knowledge were the manifestations of two distinct memory systems

He described memory for autobiographical experiences as “episodic memory” whereas memory for facts was “semantic memory.” This perspective challenged most contemporary theories.

Dr. Tulving published an influential paper on retrieval processes

This paper represented the first time someone had separated storage from retrieval and highlighted the mind’s active involvement in encoding information rather than as a response to stimuli.

Dr. Tulving joined the Psychology Department at the University of Toronto as an assistant professor

He was promoted to full professor in 1965.

Dr. Tulving’s early work challenged the dominant belief that learning was based on simple associations

Instead, he focused on free recall studies and expanded research inquiry into memory encoding and memory retrieval processes.

At age 17, near the end of World War II, Tulving escaped his native Estonia before it was occupied by the Soviet Union

In 1949, he immigrated to Canada. After a short stint as a farmhand near London, Ontario, he enrolled in Honours Psychology at the University of Toronto. This marked the beginning of an incredibly productive career that spanned over half a century.