Peter Carpenter Dodwell also known as Peter Dodwell (1930-2006) was a Canadian psychologist who conducted sustained research on spatial vision..

Peter Carpenter Dodwell
Born1930
Died19 September 2006
CitizenshipCanadian
OccupationPsychologist
Academic background
Alma materUniversity of Oxford
Thesis (1955)
Academic work
DisciplinePsychology
Sub-disciplinePerceptual psychology
InstitutionsQueen's University at Kingston

Biography

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Dodwell was born in India in 1930. He moved to England at an early age and completed his education there. He obtained degrees in philosophy and psychology from the University of Oxford. He then taught for three years at Birkbeck, University of London (1955-1958) and then moved to Canada where he worked in Queen's University at Kingston for the remainder of his career.[1] He was the Head of the Department of Psychology for nine years (1972-1981). He was elected President of the Canadian Psychological Association in 1985.[2]

Research

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He spent his whole academic career researching aspects of perception and vision. This included research on encoding, spatial form, pattern discrimination, perceptual development, and perceptual adaptation. He was best known for his research on the application of the Lie group to form perception.[3] He was the Founding North American editor of the journal Spatial Vision.[4] This journal published a special issue in 1994 recognising his contribution.[5]

He was also concerned about broader issues and in his retirement wrote a book about the spiritual basis for human culture and creativity[6]

Awards

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Publications

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  • Dodwell, P.C. (1957a). Shape-recognition in rats. British Journal of Psychology, 48, 221–229.
  • Dodwell, P.C. (1957b). Shape discrimination in the octopus and the rat. Nature, 179, 1088-1088.
  • Dodwell, P.C. Shape-recognition - a reply to Deutsch. British Journal of Psychology, 49, 158–159.
  • Dodwell, P.C. (1960). Children's understanding of number and related concepts. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 14, 191–205.
  • Dodwell, P.C. (1960). Causes of behavior and explanation in psychology. Mind, 69, 1–13.
  • Dodwell, P.C. (1960). Discrimination of small shapes by the rat. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 12, 237–241.
  • Dodwell, P.C. (1961). Coding and learning in shape discrimination. Psychological Review, 68, 373–382.

References

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  1. ^ "In memoriam: Peter Carpenter Dodwell". Spatial Vision. 19 (6): 479–484. 2006.
  2. ^ "Past Department Heads". Department of Psychology, Queen's University. Retrieved 28 January 2024.
  3. ^ Dodwell, Peter C. (1983). "The Lie transformation group model of visual perception". Perception and Psychophysics. 34: 1–16.
  4. ^ "In memoriam: Peter Carpenter Dodwell". Spatial Vision. 19 (6): 479–484. 2006.
  5. ^ Foster, David, H.; Humphreys, G. Keith (1994). "Invariance, recognition and perception: a special issue in honour of Peter C. Dodwell". Spatial Vision. 6 (1): 1–2.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  6. ^ Dodwell, Peter, C. (2000). Brave New Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  7. ^ "Peter Dodwell". Times Colonist. 23 September 2006. Retrieved 28 January 2024.