Richard Gregory

For the editor of Nature, see Sir Richard Gregory, 1st Baronet.

Richard Gregory
Born	Richard Langton Gregory 24 July 1923(1923-07-24) London, England, UK
Died	17 May 2010(2010-05-17) (aged 86) Bristol, England, UK
Nationality	British
Fields	Psychology, Neuropsychology
Institutions	University of Bristol

Richard Langton Gregory CBE FRS FRSE (24 July 1923 – 17 May 2010) was a British psychologist and Emeritus Professor of Neuropsychology at the University of Bristol.

Life and career

Richard Gregory was born in London, the son of Christopher Clive Langton Gregory and Helen Patricia. His father was an astronomer and the first Director of the University of London Observatory.

Gregory served with the Royal Air Force's Signals branch during World War II, and after the war earned an RAF scholarship to the Downing College, Cambridge. One of Sir Frederic Bartlett's last pupils at Cambridge, Gregory admitted to having been inspired by him. He was made an Honorary Fellow of Downing in 1999.

In 1967, with Prof. Donald Michie and Prof. Christopher Longuet-Higgins FRS, he founded the Department of Machine Intelligence and Perception, a forerunner of the Department of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Edinburgh. He was Head of the Bionics Research Laboratory, Professor of Bionics, and Department Chairman 1968-70.

He was a founding member of the Experimental Psychology Society and served as its President in 1981-2.

He collaborated with W. E. Hick for the latter's influential paper "On the rate of gain of information". In fact, he commented "... I was the only subject for his gain of information experiment to complete the course, as he was the only other subject and he packed it in when the apparatus fell apart".

In 1978, he founded The Exploratory[1], an applied science centre in Bristol. This was the first of its kind in the UK. In 1989, he was appointed Osher Visiting Fellow of the Exploratorium, a similar scientific education centre in San Francisco, California.

Gregory suggested Hermann von Helmholtz as his hero from past psychology, describing him as "... the modern founder of the science of perception".

He appeared on, and been an advisor to, numerous science-related television programmes in the UK and worldwide. His particular interest was in optical illusions and what these revealed about human perception. He authored and edited several books, notably Eye and Brain and Mind in Science. His hobby was punning (making puns) and he was also a guest on Desert Island Discs.

He died on 17 May 2010 at the Bristol Royal Infirmary, having suffered a stroke a few days earlier, surrounded by family and friends.

Works

• Recovery from Early Blindness: A case Study (1963), with Jean Wallace, Exp. Soc. Monogr. No.2. Cambridge: Heffers. {C & M of P. pp. 65–129}.
• Eye and Brain: The Psychology of Seeing (1966), London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. [in twelve languages]. Second Edition (1972). Third Edition (l977). Fourth Edition (1990). USA: Princeton University Press; (1994) Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fifth Edition (1997) Oxford University Press and (1998) Princeton University Press.
• The Intelligent Eye (l970), London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. [in 6 languages].
• Illusion in Nature and Art (1973), (ed with Sir Ernst Gombrich), London: Duckworth.
• Concepts and Mechanisms of Perception (1974), London: Duckworth. [collected papers].
• Mind in Science: A History of Explanations of Psychology and Physics (1981), London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson; USA: CUP. Paperback, Peregrine (l984). (Macmillan Scientific Book Club choice). Transl. Italian, La Mente nella, Scienze, Mondadori (1985).
• Odd Perceptions [essays] (l986), London: Methuen. Paperback (1988) Routledge. (2nd edition 1990-91).
• Creative Intelligences (1987), (ed with Pauline Marstrand), London: Frances Pinter. ISBN 0861876733.
• Oxford Companion to the Mind (1987), (ed.) Oxford: OUP. [translated into Italian, French, Spanish. In TSP Softbacks, and other Book Clubs]. Paperback 1998.
• Evolution of the Eye and Visual System (1992), (ed with John R Cronly-Dillon), Vol 2 of Vision and Visual Dysfunction. London: Macmillan.
• Even Odder Perceptions (1994), [essays]. London: Routledge.
• The Artful Eye (1995), (ed with J. Harris, P.Heard and D. Rose). Oxford: OUP
• Mirrors in Mind (1997), Oxford: W. H. Freeman/Spektrum. (1998) Penguin.
• The Mind Makers (1998), London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
• Seeing Through Illusions (2009), OUP.
• Main journal publications

Degrees

Year	Degree
1950	M.A. (Cantab)
1983	D.Sc. (Bristol)

Honorary Degrees

Year	Honorary degree
1990	D. Univ. (Open) D. Univ. (Stirling)
1993	LL.D (Bristol)
1996	D.Sc. (East Anglia) D.Sc. (Exon)
1998	D.Univ. (York) D.Sc. (U.M.I.S.T.)
1999	D.Sc. (Keele)
2000	D.Sc. (Edinburgh)

Family

In 1953, he married Margaret Hope Pattison Muir, one son, one daughter (marriage dissolved 1966). In 1967, he married Freja Mary Balchin, the daughter of novelist Nigel Balchin, (marriage dissolved 1976). Gregory is survived by two children (Mark and Romilly Gregory), two grandchildren (Luutsche Ozinga and Kiran Rogers) and his long term companion Priscilla Heard.^{[citation needed]}

References

• "Richard Gregory: Curriculum Vitae". http://www.richardgregory.org/cv.htm. Retrieved 30 July 2005. 

External links

• Professor Richard Gregory on-line
• Richard Gregory - Why I Tell Jokes video and telling his life story at Web of Stories (video)
• The Psycholgist Obituary
• Daily Telegraph Obituary
• The Exploratory in Bristol
• Richard Gregory: a life of science and delight - reflections on his life by Sue Blackmore in The Guardian
• The Hollow-Face illusion (also known as hollow-mask illusion) in a version using Charlie Chaplin's head has become known to a wide audience.