Name Lawrence Weiskrantz | Role Psychologist | |
 | ||
Books Blindsight, Consciousness lost and found People also search for Martin Davies, Alan Baddeley, Joaquin Fuster | ||
Lawrence Weiskrantz (born 28 March 1926) is a British psychologist, who discovered the phenomenon of blindsight, which is the voluntary visually evoked response to a stimulus presented within a scotoma.
Contents
Early life
Weiskrantz originally attended Girard College, a boarding school in Philadelphia, due in part to the death of his father when he was six. After graduating, he attended Swarthmore College and served in World War II. Shortly before his graduation, he was awarded a Catherwood fellowship at Oxford University.
Career
Weiskrantz became Professor of Psychology at Oxford University where he remained a full professor until his retirement in the 1990s. As of 2014, he is currently Professor Emeritus at Oxford University. Weiskrantz has expressed a lifelong interest in the writings and research of the Russian neuropsychologist Alexander Luria, whom he had met and befriended while Luria was still doing research. The two remained colleagues until Luria's death in 1977. Weiskrantz is generally credited with having discovered the phenomenon of blindsight following his book on this subject in 1986, which is the voluntary visually evoked response to a stimulus presented within a scotoma.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1980. He was on its council in 1988–1989 and its Ferier lecturer in 1989.