Mark Changizi (born 1969) is an American theoretical cognitive scientist. He is known for his research on evolutionary origins of biological and cognitive design, including the "Perceiving the present" hypothesis to understand optical illusions, the "Nature-Harnessing" theory for the origins of writing, speech and music, the skin-signaling hypothesis for the origins of primate red-green vision, and the rain-tread hypothesis for pruney fingers.

Early life and education

Changizi was born in

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

in 1969. His mother is American and his father, a physicist, is from

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

. He graduated from the

Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (also known as TJHSST, TJ, or Jefferson) is a Virginia state-chartered magnet high school in Fairfax County, Virginia operated by Fairfax County Public Schools. The school occupies the buil ...

Alexandria, Virginia Alexandria is an independent city (United States), independent city in the northern region of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Virginia, United States. It lies on the western bank of the Potomac River approximately south of Downto ...

. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in physics and math from the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United S ...

and a PhD in math from the

University of Maryland, College Park The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of Mary ...

Career

In 2002, he won a Sloan-Swartz Fellowship in Theoretical Neurobiology at the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

, and in 2007 he became an assistant professor in the Department of Cognitive Science at

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute () (RPI) is a private research university in Troy, New York, with an additional campus in Hartford, Connecticut. A third campus in Groton, Connecticut closed in 2018. RPI was established in 1824 by Stephen Van ...

. Changizi also conducted research at the

University College Cork University College Cork – National University of Ireland, Cork (UCC) ( ga, Coláiste na hOllscoile Corcaigh) is a constituent university of the National University of Ireland, and located in Cork. The university was founded in 1845 as one of ...

and

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

. Changizi says that visual illusions are due to a neural lag which most humans experience while awake. When light hits the retina, about one-tenth of a second goes by before the brain translates the signal into a visual perception of the world. Changizi asserts that the human visual system has evolved to compensate for neural delays by generating images of what will occur one-tenth of a second into the future. This foresight enables humans to react to events in the present, enabling humans to perform reflexive acts like catching a fly ball and to maneuver smoothly through a crowd. Although not the first to suggest this idea, he was the first to show how the idea can explain and unify a large variety of perceptual illusions. In 2010, together with colleague Dr. Tim Barber, Changizi started the research institute 2ai Labs, with the idea to start tech companies based on his research, and subsequently bring funding toward further research at the institute. Changizi took the post of director of human cognition at 2ai.

Publications

Books

* ''The brain from 25,000 feet'', 2003 * ''The Vision Revolution: How the Latest Research Overturns Everything We Thought We Knew About Human Vision'', 2010 * ''Harnessed: How Language and Music Mimicked Nature and Transformed Ape to Man'', 2011 * ''Expressly Human: Decoding the Language of Emotion'', 2022

Articles

* Changizi M A, Widders D M, 2002, "Latency correction explains the classical geometrical illusions" Perception 31(10) 1241–1262 * Changizi, M. A., Hsieh, A., Nijhawan, R., Kanai, R., & Shimojo, S. (2008). Perceiving the Present and a Systematization of Illusions. Cognitive Science, 32(3), 459–503. http://doi.org/10.1080/03640210802035191

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Changizi, Mark 1969 births Living people American neuroscientists 21st-century American mathematicians Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology alumni