There would be no Visual Cognition without Glyn Humphreys. Glyn founded this journal almost a quarter of a century ago, in 1994. In his first editorial he expressed his vision for the future, pointing out exponential growth in cognitive research and the need for a journal focusing on high-level vision; a journal for topics such as object perception and face recognition, mental imagery and spatial thinking, visual attention, reading and eye movement control, and the interaction between vision and action. The first volume carried papers by Gordon Shulman on the role of cognitive control in perceiving rotation, Lana Trick and Zenon Pylyshyn on visual enumeration, Rob Ward with Susan Goodrich and Jon Driver on how grouping affects visual extinction, and Tim Brennen on face perception. Ever since, the journal has filled a much-valued niche. Glyn had a keen eye for where the field was heading, and what it needed. Service to the field was his second nature, be it as teacher, head of school, reviewer, editor, organizer of numerous symposia and other gatherings, or board member of every relevant evaluation and funding committee. I have the saddening honour to write this editorial in his footsteps. Glyn died suddenly on 14 January 2016, leaving behind not only a tremendous feeling of loss, but also a tremendous legacy.
In a way, there is no visual cognition without Glyn Humphreys. With his enormous creativity, breadth and depth of research, there is virtually no area in vision science that he has not had an impact on. Glyn will be remembered as probably the most versatile scientist in the field thus far. His knowledge base was simply phenomenal, he did not just know “the literature”, he knew all literatures. It therefore would not have made sense to compile a special issue about a specific topic. Instead, this issue pays tribute to a very special person.
Glyn’s career started with his first publication in 1978, on category priming in the perception of letters and digits (Humphreys, Citation1978). One of his most recent contributions is in this issue, also on category perception (Panis, Torfs, Gillebert, Wagemans, & Humphreys, this issue). In between these two articles, he published well over 600 scientific works and has been cited more than 20,000 times. The list of seminal contributions to science is endless.Footnote1 In 1987 he published the first known case of integrative agnosia, together with Jane Riddoch (Humphreys & Riddoch, Citation1987; Riddoch & Humphreys, Citation1987a). Important work on agnosia followed with the discovery of a nonspatial form of extinction in simultanagnosia (Humphreys, Romani, Olson, Riddoch, & Duncan, Citation1994). He presented an important theory on object recognition and naming (Humphreys, Riddoch, & Quinlan, Citation1988), how category-specific deficits in object recognition are to be explained (Humphreys & Forde, Citation2001), and the influential idea that between-object space is represented fundamentally differently from within-object space (Humphreys, Citation1998). Furthermore, together with Jane, Glyn has been among the first and strongest advocates of the idea that action and perception strongly interact (Humphreys & Riddoch, Citation2001; Humphreys et al., Citation2010; Riddoch & Humphreys, Citation1987b; Riddoch, Humphreys, Edwards, Baker, & Willson, Citation2003). In addition to his research in neuropsychology, Glyn worked on visual attention and, in 1989, he published the all-time classic on attentional engagement theory (also known as similarity theory) of visual search, with John Duncan (Duncan & Humphreys, Citation1989). This publication was followed by other influential visual search papers (Humphreys & Müller, Citation1993; Watson & Humphreys, Citation1997). Significant work on attention was published with David Soto, revealing the interactions between working memory and visual selection at both behavioural and neurophysiological levels (Soto, Heinke, Humphreys, & Blanco, Citation2005; Soto, Humphreys, & Rothstein, Citation2007). More recently, Glyn made great contributions to the field of social cognition, starting with the highly-cited work on theory of mind (Samson, Apperly, Chiavarino, & Humphreys, Citation2004), and moving towards the perceptual consequences of self-prioritization (Sui, He, & Humphreys, Citation2012). Recently, Glyn returned to the work he liked most, leading the development of cognitive screening tools for neurological damage after stroke (Demeyere, Riddoch, Slavkova, Bickerton, & Humphreys, Citation2015; Humphreys, Bickerton, Samson, & Riddoch, Citation2012).
Where it is difficult to capture the immense depth of Glyn’s thinking, the contributions to this special issue at least reflect that breadth and reach of his work. From almost 50 submissions, a total of 27 papers were selected, presenting studies on working memory (Fabius, Mathôt, Schut, Nijboer, & Van der Stigchel, this issue; Smith & Lane, this issue; Wedmore, Musil, & Soto, this issue; Won & Leber, this issue; Zhang & Xie, this issue), attention and control (Annac, Conci, Müller, & Geyer, this issue; Becker, Drutt, Vromen, & Horstmann, this issue; Berggren, Jenkins, MacCants, & Eimer, this issue; Bertleff, Fink, & Weidner, this issue; de Groot, Huettig & Olivers, this issue; Horstmann, Becker, & Ernst, this issue; Kunar, Thomas, & Watson, this issue; Narbutas, Lin, Kristan, & Heinke, this issue; Reeder, Olivers, & Pollmann, this issue; Becker, & Kerzel, this issue; Wiegand, Petersen, Bundesen, & Habekost, this issue), object perception, categorization and naming (Desmarais, Lane, LaBlanc, & Hiltz, this issue; Gerlach, this issue; Norman, Heywood, & Kentridge, this issue; Panis et al., this issue; Paramei, Favrod, Sabel, & Herzog, this issue; Smith & Milne, this issue; Tarr & Heywood, this issue), action control (Desmarais, Lane, LaBlanc, & Hiltz, this issue; Xu & Heinke, this issue), and social vision, including self-prioritization (Dalmaso, Castelli, Scatturin, & Galfano, this issue; Moradi, Futa, Hewstone, Yankouskaya, ENock, & Humphreys, this issue; Reuther & Chakravathie, this issue; Schäfer, Wentura, & Frings, this issue). Glyn was multidisciplinary avant la lettre. In line with this, the papers represent a range of methods, including psychophysics, eye tracking, action recording, EEG, fMRI, lesion/neuropsychological data, and computational modelling – echoing Glyn’s recently repeated pledge for a broad spectrum of converging approaches (Humphreys, Citation2016).
I would like to thank all authors for submitting their great work in honour of Glyn. I also thank the co-editors for their tremendous help in assessing the submissions: Jim Tanaka, Charles Folk, Iain Gilchrist, Dana Samson, Martin Edwards, and Jane Riddoch. Many of us, authors and editors, grew up under Glyn’s wing. One of them became the central pillar of his life. Above all, beyond being a great scientist, Glyn was a great mentor to work with, and a great person to be with. Someone who was able to create a warm, open and vibrant research atmosphere, and inspire many scientists young and old. He truly reached out, not only to other fields, but also to people from different cultures, as Glyn saw merit in each and every person regardless of their background, age and sex. As such, he promoted gender equality and cultural diversity already decades ago – simply by doing it. Personally, I have cherished memories of the constant buzz in his lab, the (very) early morning meetings, the sheer number of interesting projects he was running, the number of famous and less famous scholars visiting, the opportunities he gave for going to conferences and meetings with other scientists, and his gentle way of pulling out the best from you. I remember how Glyn one day asked me if I could program the experiment and the interface for an fMRI project he was setting up in Leipzig (Germany) back then together with Stefan Pollmann and Ralph Weidner (both of whom contributed to this issue). I asked when he needed it done. He replied with one of his famous phrases, one that I still use with my own PhD students: “There is no real rush, but it would be great if it was done by tomorrow.” He was flying off to Germany that afternoon, as he had booked the scanner for 9am the next morning. We got it working in time, and when he came back he brought a six pack of German beer. However, the most rewarding thing was the thrill, to work hard together and get it done.
Thank you Glyn
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Many of these works were chosen by Glyn himself as his favourites, see Humphreys (Citation2016).
References
- Demeyere, N., Riddoch, M. J., Slavkova, E. D., Bickerton, W.-L., and Humphreys, G. W. (2015). The Oxford Cognitive Screen (OCS): Validation of a stroke-specific short cognitive screening tool. Psychological Assessment, 27, 883–894. doi: 10.1037/pas0000082
- Duncan, J., & Humphreys, G. W. (1989). Visual search and stimulus similarity. Psychological Review, 96(3), 433–458. doi: 10.1037/0033-295X.96.3.433
- Humphreys, G. W. (1978). The use of category information in perception. Perception, 7(5), 589–604. doi: 10.1068/p070589
- Humphreys, G. W. (1998). Neural representation of objects in space: A dual coding account. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 353(1373), 1341–1351. doi: 10.1098/rstb.1998.0288
- Humphreys, G. W. (2016). Attention, perception, and action: Selected works of Glyn Humphreys. New York, NY: Routledge.
- Humphreys, G. W., Bickerton, W.-L., Samson, D., & Riddoch, M. J. (2012). BCos: A screen for individual cognitive profiling and classification. Hove, East Sussex: Psychology Press.
- Humphreys, G. W., & Forde, E. M. (2001). Hierarchies, similarity, and interactivity in object recognition: “Category-specific” neuropsychological deficits. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24(03), 453–476.
- Humphreys, G. W., & Müller, H. J. (1993). SEarch via Recursive Rejection (SERR): A connectionist model of visual search. Cognitive Psychology, 25(1), 43–110. doi: 10.1006/cogp.1993.1002
- Humphreys, G. W., & Riddoch, M. J. (1987). To see but not to see: A case study of visual Agnosia. Hove: Psychology Press.
- Humphreys, G. W., & Riddoch, M. J. (2001). Detection by action: Neuropsychological evidence for action-defined templates in search. Nature Neuroscience, 4(1), 84–88. doi: 10.1038/82940
- Humphreys, G. W., Riddoch, M. J., & Quinlan, P. T. (1988). Cascade processes in picture identification. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 5(1), 67–104. doi: 10.1080/02643298808252927
- Humphreys, G. W., Romani, C., Olson, A., Riddoch, M. J., & Duncan, J. (1994). Non-spatial extinction following lesions of the parietal lobe in humans. Nature, 372(6504), 357–359. doi: 10.1038/372357a0
- Humphreys, G. W., Yoon, E. Y., Kumar, S., Lestou, V., Kitadono, K., Roberts, K. L., & Riddoch, M. J. (2010). The interaction of attention and action: From seeing action to acting on perception. British Journal of Psychology, 101(2), 185–206. doi: 10.1348/000712609X458927
- Riddoch, M. J., & Humphreys, G. W. (1987a). A case of integrative visual Agnosia. Brain, 110(6), 1431–1462. doi: 10.1093/brain/110.6.1431
- Riddoch, M. J., & Humphreys, G. W. (1987b). Visual object processing in optic aphasia: A case of semantic access Agnosia. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 4(2), 131–185. doi: 10.1080/02643298708252038
- Riddoch, M. J., Humphreys, G. W., Edwards, S., Baker, T., & Willson, K. (2003). Seeing the action: Neuropsychological evidence for action-based effects on object selection. Nature Neuroscience, 6(1), 82–89. doi: 10.1038/nn984
- Samson, D., Apperly, I. A., Chiavarino, C., & Humphreys, G. W. (2004). Left temporoparietal junction is necessary for representing someone else’s belief. Nature Neuroscience, 7(5), 499–500. doi: 10.1038/nn1223
- Soto, D., Heinke, D., Humphreys, G. W., & Blanco, M. J. (2005). Early, involuntary top-down guidance of attention from working memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 31(2), 248–261.
- Soto, D., Humphreys, G. W., & Rothstein, P. (2007). Dissociating the neural mechanisms of memory-based guidance of visual selection. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(43), 17186–17191. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0703706104
- Sui, J., He, X., & Humphreys, G. W. (2012). Perceptual effects of social salience: Evidence from self-prioritization effects on perceptual matching. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 38(5), 1105–1117.
- Watson, D. G., & Humphreys, G. W. (1997). Visual marking: Prioritizing selection for new objects by top-down attentional inhibition of old objects. Psychological Review, 104(1), 90–122. doi: 10.1037/0033-295X.104.1.90