2026 William K. Estes: Psychology Researcher – H-Index, Publications & Awards

Discipline name	D-Index	World Ranking	National Ranking	Publications	Citations
Psychology	57	3984	2234	160	16209

Discipline name

D-Index

World Ranking

National Ranking

Publications

Citations

Psychology

3984

2234

160

16209

Research.com Recognitions

1997 - US President's National Medal of Science "For his fundamental theories of learning, memory, and decision. His pioneering development and testing of mathematical models of psychological processes have set the standard for theoretical progress in behavioral and cognitive science.", Presented by President Bill Clinton at a ceremony in Room 450, Old Executive Office Building, on Tuesday, December 16, 1997.
1990 - William James Fellow Award, Association for Psychological Science (APA)
1985 - Fellow of John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
1963 - Member of the National Academy of Sciences
1962 - APA Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Psychology, American Psychological Association
1956 - Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
1933 - Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Overview

William K. Estes was affiliated with Harvard University in the United States. Their career encompassed significant contributions to the fields of psychology and cognitive science, particularly focusing on learning, memory, and decision processes.

Throughout their career, they were recognized with several awards and honors. These included the US President's National Medal of Science in 1997, awarded "for fundamental theories of learning, memory, and decision" and for pioneering mathematical models of psychological processes. This medal was presented by President Bill Clinton at a ceremony held in Room 450 of the Old Executive Office Building on December 16, 1997.

Additional honors received were the William James Fellow Award from the Association for Psychological Science in 1990, fellowship with the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in 1985, and election as a Member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1963.

They also received the APA Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Psychology from the American Psychological Association in 1962. Their early recognition included being named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) twice, first in 1933 and later in 1956.

Best Publications

Some quantitative properties of anxiety

W. K. Estes;B. F. Skinner

1834
Citations
Toward a Statistical Theory of Learning.

William K. Estes

1336
Citations
Statistical theory of spontaneous recovery and regression.

Estes Wk

708
Citations
Classification and cognition

William Kaye Estes

655
Citations
An experimental study of punishment.

William K. Estes

511
Citations
Array models for category learning.

William K. Estes

494
Citations
The cognitive side of probability learning.

W. K. Estes

439
Citations
Stimulus Sampling Theory

Richard C. Atkinson;William Kaye Estes

396
Citations
Learning theory and the new "mental chemistry".

Estes Wk

379
Citations
Interactions of signal and background variables in visual processing

W. K. Estes

372
Citations
Analysis of a verbal conditioning situation in terms of statistical learning theory

W. K. Estes;J. H. Straughan

353
Citations
Statistical theory of distributional phenomena in learning.

W. K. Estes

345
Citations
Item and order information in short-term memory: Evidence for multilevel perturbation processes.

Catherine L. Lee;William K. Estes

298
Citations
Order and position in primary memory for letter strings

Catherine L. Lee;William K. Estes

294
Citations
Discriminative conditioning. II. Effects of a Pavlovian conditioned stimulus upon a subsequently established operant response.

William K. Estes

284
Citations
Intelligence and Learning

Unknown

283
Citations
A theory of stimulus variability in learning.

W. K. Estes;C. J. Burke

273
Citations
Effects of recall tests on long-term retention of paired associates

Gordon A. Allen;William A. Mahler;W.K. Estes

259
Citations
Serial position functions for letter identification at brief and extended exposure durations

W. K. Estes;D. H. Allmeyer;S. M. Reder

241
Citations
Base-rate effects in category learning: a comparison of parallel network and memory storage-retrieval models.

William K. Estes;Jane A. Campbell;Nicholas Hatsopoulos;Joshua B. Hurwitz

230
Citations
Learning theory and mental development

William Kaye Estes

213
Citations
Studies in Mathematical Learning Theory

Robert R. Bush;William Kaye Estes;Norman Henry Anderson

171
Citations

Frequent Co-Authors

W. Todd Maddox The University of Texas at Austin

Elizabeth Ligon Bjork University of California, Los Angeles

Richard M. Shiffrin Indiana University

Paul E. Meehl University of Minnesota

B. F. Skinner Harvard University

Alice F. Healy University of Colorado Boulder

James J. Gibson Cornell University

Harry F. Harlow University of Wisconsin–Madison

Charles E. Osgood University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Irving L. Janis Yale University

External Links

Wikipedia of William K. Estes Personal website of William K. Estes

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