My book "Eye and Brain"

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Other publications: The Intelligent Eye and Mind in Science

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My book Eye and Brain

Richard Gregory Scientist

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"Eye and Brain", yes, that was fun. Actually I could say that was one of my few successes actually. It was a successful book and is, it’s in its fifth edition in umpteen languages, just going into Chinese. It’s been in Japanese twice, it’s been translated twice into Japanese but it’s now going into Chinese. Anyway, the point about that, it was based on this sort of philosophy. It’s a book of psychology, not exactly written for students but I hope they’d be interested in it but it was never written as a textbook, it wasn’t intended as textbook and it’s meant to be of general interest but with some real ideas in it and I was very fortunate because it’s very well illustrated and that is because George Weidenfeld, a great publisher, started a thing he called the World University Library, and the idea of that was to have very, very well illustrated books and because it was in lots of languages, ten languages, it would have the same illustrations in all and therefore the cost of the colour printing was relatively small, you know, because it was distributed over umpteen languages and this actually became the first volume in the World University Library and it was actually done not directly by George but by Colin Haycraft who at that time worked for George and then bought Duckworth and ran Duckworth and he was my friend for life. I mean he died a few years ago, unfortunately, I think the accountant killed him by the way, and I finished the book on his kitchen table as a matter of fact. Very, very friendly with Colin, he was a lovely man. I never made any money, of course, because of Colin but apart from that, he never paid his authors. Anyway, the book did actually take off, I have to say, it really did, I think, really because it had a philosophy in it which was accessible, well illustrated and, frankly, I think because it was right. I believe very much in its, you know, in its message now.

The late British psychologist and Emeritus Professor of Neuropsychology at the University of Bristol, Richard Gregory (1923-2010), is well known for his work on perception, the psychology of seeing and his love of puns. In 1978 he founded The Exploratory, an applied science centre in Bristol – the first of its kind in the UK. He also designed and directed the Special Senses Laboratory at Cambridge which worked on the perceptual problems of astronauts, and published many books including 'The Oxford Companion to the Mind', 'Eye and Brain' and 'Mind in Science'.

Title: My book "Eye and Brain"

Listeners: Adam Hart-Davis Sally Duensing

Born on 4 July 1943, Adam Hart-Davis is a freelance photographer, writer, and broadcaster. He has won various awards for both television and radio. Before presenting, Adam spent 5 years in publishing and 17 years at Yorkshire Television, as researcher and then producer of such series as Scientific Eye and Arthur C Clarke's World of Strange Powers. He has read several books, and written about 25. His latest books are Why does a ball bounce?, Taking the piss, Just another day, and The cosmos: a beginner's guide. He has written numerous newspaper and magazine articles. He is a keen supporter of the charities WaterAid, Practical Action, Sustrans, and the Joliba Trust. A Companion of the Institution of Lighting Engineers, an Honorary Member of the British Toilet Association, an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Society of Dyers and Colourists, and Merton College Oxford, and patron of a dozen charitable organizations, Adam has collected thirteen honorary doctorates, The Horace Hockley Award from the Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators, a Medal from the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Medal from the Institute of Incorporated Engineers, and the 1999 Gerald Frewer memorial trophy of the Council of Engineering Designers. He has no car, but three cycles, which he rides slowly but with enthusiasm.

Sally Duensing currently is involved in perception exhibition work and research on science and society dialogue programmes and is working with informal learning research graduate students and post-docs at King's College, London. In 2000 she held the Collier Chair, a one-year invited professorship in the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Bristol, England. Prior to this, for over 20 years she was at the Exploratorium, a highly interactive museum of science, art and perception in San Francisco where she directed a variety of exhibition projects primarily in fields of perception and cognition including a large exhibition on biological, cognitive and cultural aspects of human memory.

Duration: 2 minutes, 15 seconds

Date story recorded: June 2006

Date story went live: 02 June 2008