Sometimes we can be too smart in seeking the solution to a problem, outwitting ourselves with our own cleverness. Prompted by the light of our reasoning, we find our way as if to a smartly appointed room. Here we become surprisingly comfortable, and the artificial brightness of the internal logic we have pursued nearly convinces us the room is illuminated by the problem we set out after. As often as not, our journey ends here. Yet in reality we have been led astray: Ours is a stuffy, windowless room, shut off from the “real world” – a reclusive chamber of our own construction. Over the last few years, the authors of this essay, like several other scholars (e.g., Neisser 1992; Scribner 1984; Bruner 1990), have reluctantly come to the conclusion that the branch of psychology in which we have labored, the one responsible for the study of cognition, may have cleverly constructed and be happily residing in just such an artificial enclave, cut off from the still unresolved problems that originally inspired it. In short, we have concluded that cognitive psychology now confronts an impasse. This chapter will outline the dimensions of this impasse and suggest ways to surmount it.

As cognitive psychologists, we hesitantly come to this conclusion in part out of frustration at our inability to offer satisfactory responses to the persistent queries of friends and relatives. Our area of expertise is memory, and friends and relatives often ask us why they have such poor memories, or why they have trouble remembering names, facts, appointments, or the details of their children's school lives.