His main areas of study include language, human memory, history of psychology, and foundations of cognitive science.
After his military service of three years, he attended graduate school, Seoul National University, majoring in Experimental Psychology (MA in 1971).
He is married to Heisook Lee, a mathematician and professor in the Department of Mathematics, Ewha Womans University in Seoul.
His Adviser was Professor David J. Murray, whose main research areas were human memory and history of psychology.
Then he worked as a professor at the Department of Psychology, and at the Graduate Program for Cognitive Science of Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul (1986-2009).