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Richard Langton Gregory (1923–2010) Cognitive Scientist Who Excelled at Communicating Science

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Richard Langton Gregory (1923–2010) Cognitive Scientist Who Excelled at Communicating Science NATURE|Vol 466|1 July 2010 NEWS & VIEWS OBITUARY Richard Langton Gregory (1923–2010) Cognitive scientist who excelled at communicating science. TE I met Richard Gregory when I was an the inappropriate scaling of apparent size, I WH undergraduate at Cambridge in 1964, after a triggered by unconscious interpretation LL I lecture on the differences between computers of perspective cues in the pattern or object J and brains. My nervousness was immediately being observed. dispelled by a string of jokes and puns. On the basis of his work on illusions, Shaking with laughter, he told me that he was Gregory proposed that perceptions are like planning a series of historical recipe books, predictive scientific hypotheses — the theme starting with Cooking in Ancient Greece. of his best-selling books Eye and Brain (1966), Eventually we talked science, discussing The Intelligent Eye (1970) and Mind in Science whether the perceived distance of a sound (1981). source influences how loud the sound seems. In 1967, he moved to Edinburgh to “Why don’t we do an experiment?” he said, help found the department of machine welcoming me into the grotto of wonders intelligence and perception. Here, an offer that was his lab. of a deconsecrated church as lab space was Gregory was a pioneer in cognitive withdrawn when the Church of Scotland science. He worked in an era dominated by discovered that the scientists intended to neurophysiologists revealing the ‘bottom-up’ make robots! Tensions between the lab processing of sensory signals in the eye, the ear leaders, however, spurred Gregory to move and the brain. Yet he championed the role of to Bristol in 1970, to establish the Brain and ‘top-down’ influences in perception — those Perception Laboratory. based on experience and understanding. At Bristol, where he continued to work Although he won many honours (he held until his death, Gregory studied eye–hand 11 honorary degrees and was a fellow of the researchers and engineers. I remember his coordination in patients with Parkinson’s Royal Society), the significance of his work crowded workshop — with his solid-image disease; perceptual ‘filling-in’ of the blind has yet to be fully recognized. This may be microscope and a three-dimensional drawing spot; and his beloved illusions. He also partly because many of his most important machine; his image-aggregation telescope focused his creativity increasingly on public ideas were communicated in popular writing for overcoming the effects of atmospheric communication, in which he’d shown and editorials, rather than through academic disturbance; and, over in a corner, devices for considerable flair years before: when, in 1946, papers. transducing tidal power. he was given the job of explaining radar to Gregory, who died on 17 May, was the son Gregory’s delight in translating mental the public at a bomb site on Oxford Street in of Christopher Gregory, the first director of concepts into physical devices mirrored his London, he drew 4 million visitors in 6 months. the University of London Observatory, and fascination with the translation of retinal An encounter in 1970 with Frank his wife Helen Patricia. He learned simple images into mental concepts. Although Oppenheimer — founder of the electronics in the ‘radio club’ at King Alfred he viewed the neurophysiologists in the Exploratorium in San Francisco — inspired School in Hampstead, north London, and his adjoining laboratory as “superior beings”, Gregory to create the Exploratory in Bristol. knowledge of instrumentation grew during Gregory saw perception as “creatively This was Britain’s first interactive science six years of work on communications and intelligent”, not just automatic analysis. centre and most of the exhibits were designed radar in the Royal Air Force (RAF). Two lines of evidence particularly by Gregory himself. He also collaborated with He arrived in Cambridge in 1947 on an influenced him. The first was his study of a art historian Ernst Gombrich in designing RAF scholarship to read ‘moral sciences’. In 52-year-old man, blind from an early age, a major exhibition, ‘Illusion in nature and his first two years, dominated by philosophy, who received corneal transplants. As soon art’, for the Institute of Contemporary Arts he “just missed Wittgenstein” but was tutored as his bandages were removed, he could in London, in 1973. Throughout his career, by Bertrand Russell. In his final year Gregory interpret by sight things he had learned Gregory delighted non-specialists with his concentrated on experimental psychology, and to understand through touch — capital entertaining lectures and outpouring of books. was one of the last students of Frederic Bartlett letters and the face of a clock. But he was “The adventure of science,” he once wrote, — his “most revered intellectual grandfather”. perceptually blind to things outside his tactile “should be a major basis of general culture.” Bartlett asked Gregory to stay on after experience. “Vision depends on knowledge Despite his impressive physical stature graduation, and from 1950 to 1953 Gregory derived from active exploration giving and penetrating intellect, Richard was worked at the Medical Research Council’s meaning to the eyes’ images,” Gregory wrote. entirely without hubris — blind to age or applied psychology unit in the department His second source of inspiration was his class. The only thing that mattered to him of experimental psychology. Like Bartlett, work on visual illusions. This was partly was enthusiasm, and his own was highly Gregory was captivated by the idea of pursued in his hugely popular undergraduate infectious. On 30 May, his friends and family the former director, Kenneth Craik, that classes — often conducted in total darkness gathered in Bristol to celebrate his life. ‘internal models’ of the outside world are — in which twisted luminous pieces of The event was fittingly entitled a FUNeral. physically implemented in the brain and used wire apparently changed shape as they Richard would have shaken with laughter. predictively to direct behaviour. were passed around. Gregory saw such Colin Blakemore In 1953, Gregory (without a PhD) was given illusions as the effect of top-down influences Colin Blakemore is in the Department of a staff position. He created a ‘special senses that were normally needed to resolve the Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, laboratory’ with British and US grants, and ambiguity of retinal images. He argued that University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3PT, UK. filled it with fancy equipment and talented many illusions of shape and size result from e-mail: [email protected] 45 © 2010 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.
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