Nicholas Humphrey
Emeritus Professor of Psychology, London School of Economics
Nicholas Humphrey has migrated from neurophysiology, through animal behaviour to evolutionary psychology and the study of consciousness. He did research on mountain gorillas with Dian Fossey in Rwanda, he was the first to demonstrate the existence of ‘blindsight’ after brain damage in monkeys, he originated the idea of the ‘social function of intellect’, and he has recently explained the evolutionary basis of the placebo effect. He has held positions at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and is now emeritus professor at the LSE. Honours include the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize, the Pufendorf medal, and the Mind and Brain Prize. His book Sentience: The Invention of Consciousness will be published by Oxford University Press in October 2022, and by MIT Press in February 2023.
