Studiò i gorilla con Dian Fossey in Ruanda, fu il a dimostrare l'esistenza di una "vista cieca" dopo un danno al cervello nelle scimmie, propose la celebre teoria della "funzione sociale dell'intelletto" ed è stato l'unico scienziato ad aver mai scritto per il giornale letterario Granta.

Humphrey giocò un ruolo significativo nel movimento anti-nucleare della fine degli anni '70 e spedì un memoriale alla BBC intitolato: "Quattro minuti a mezzanotte" (Four Minutes to Midnight) nel 1981.

Ad oggi, ha pubblicato 10 libri, tra cui: Consciousness Regained (Coscienza riguadagnata), The Inner Eye (L'occhio interiore), A History of the Mind (Una storia della mente), Leaps of Faith (Salti della fede), The Mind Made Flesh (La mente fatta carne), Seeing Red (Visione rossa), Polvere d'anima. La magia della coscienza (Soul Dust).

Articoli

Vision in monkeys after removal of the striate cortex . (con L. Weiskrantz) Nature, 215, 515-597, 1967. Contrast illusions in perspective . Nature, 232, 91- 93, 1971. Interest and pleasure: two determinants of a monkey's visual preferences Perception, 1, 395-416, 1972. Status and the left cheek . New Scientist, 59, 437-49, 1973. The illusion of beauty . Perceptio, 2, 429-39, 1973. The apparent heaviness of colours . Nature, 250, 164-165, 1974. (With E.Pinkerton). The reaction of monkeys to fearsom pictures . Nature, 251, 500-2, 1974. Vision in a monkey without striate cortex: a case study . Perecption, 3,241-55, 1974. Species and individuals in the perceptual world of monkeys . Perception, 3, 105-14, 1974. Interactive effects of unpleasant light and unpleasant sound . Nature, 253, 346-347, 1975. (With G.R.Keeble). The colour currency of nature . In Colour for Architecture, ed. T.Porter and B.Mikellides, pp. 95-98, Studio-Vista, London, 1976. How monkeys acquire a new way of seeing . Perception, 5, 51-56, 1976. The social function of intellect . In Growing Points in Ethology, ed. P. P. G. Bateson and R. A. Hinde, pp. 303- 317, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1976. Unfoldings of mental life , Science, 196 , 755-756, 1977. Do monkeys subjective clocks run faster in red light than in blue . Perception, 6, 7-14. Effects of red light and loud noise on the rate at which monkeys sample the sensory environment . Perception 7:343-348 1978. The biological basis of collecting . Human Nature 44-47 1979. Natural aesthetics . In Architecture for People, ed. B.Mikellides, pp. 59-73, Studio-Vista, London, 1980. Nature's Psychologists . ; In Josephson, B. D. and Ramachandran, V. S., Eds. Consciousness and the Physical World , chapter 4, 57-80. Oxford: Pergamon Press 1980. Four Minutes to Midnight . The BBC Bronowski Lecture, 1981. Consciousness: a Just-So story , New Scientist , 95 473-477, 1982. The Uses of Consciousness . Fifteenth James Arthur Memorial Lecture, 1-25, American Museum of Natural History, New York, 1987. Speaking for our selves: an assessment of multiple personality disorder . Raritan, 9, 68-98. Varieties of altruism - and the common ground between them . Social Research 64:199-209, 1997. What shall we tell the children? In Williams, Wes, Ed. The Values of Science (The 1997 Oxford Amnesty Lectures), 58-79. Westview Press, 1998. Cave art, autism and the evolution of the human mind . Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 8, 165-191, 1998. Why Grandmothers May Need Large Brains . Psycoloquy 10(024), 1999. The power of prayer. Skeptical Inquirer, 24 (3), 61, 2000. The Privatization of Sensation , In Heyes, Celia and Huber, Ludwig, Eds. The Evolution of Cognition , 241-252. MIT, Cambridge, Ma, 2000. How to solve the mind-body problem . Journal of Consciousness Studies 7(4):5-20 2000. In Reply (Reply to Commentaries on ;How to Solve the Mind-Body Problem) . Journal of Consciousness Studies 7(4):98-112, 2000. One Self: a Meditation on the Unity of Consciousness . Social Research 67(4):32-39 2000. Dreaming as play . Behavioral and Brain Science, 23, 953, 2000. Follow My Leader In Humphrey, Nicholas The Mind Made Flesh: Essays from the Frontiers of Evolution and Psychology , chapter24, 330-339. Oxford University Press, 2002. The Deformed Transformed , In Humphrey, Nicholas The Mind Made Flesh: Essays from the Frontiers of Psychology and Evolution ,chapter 14, 165-199. Oxford University Press 2002. Great Expectations: The Evolutionary Psychology of Faith-Healing and the Placebo Effect , The Mind Made Flesh: Essays from the Frontiers of Psychology and Evolution ,chapter 19, 255-85, Oxford University Press, 2002. Bugs and Beasts before the Law The Mind Made Flesh: Essays from the Frontiers of Psychology and Evolution ,chapter 18, 235-254, Oxford University Press 2002. Behold the Man , In Humphrey, Nicholas The Mind Made Flesh: Essays from the Frontiers of Psychology and Evolution ,chapter 16, 206-231, Oxford University Press, 2002. Shamanism and cognitive evolution (Commentary on Michael Winkelman) . Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 12, 91-3, 2002 A Family Affair , In Curious Minds: How a Child Becomes a Scientist, ed. John Brockman, p.3-12, New York: Pantheon Books, 2004. The Placebo Effect , In Gregory, Richard L., Ed. Oxford Companion to the Mind. Second Edition . Oxford University Press, 2004. Thinking about Feeling , In Gregory, Richard L., Ed. Oxford Companion to the Mind. Second Edition . Oxford University Press, 2004. Do babies know what they look like? Doppelgängers and the phenomenology of infancy . In Susan Hurley and Nick Chater (Eds.), Perspectives on Imitation: From Cognitive Neuroscience to Social Science. Cambridge: MIT Press. (2005) Human handwalkers: five siblings who never stood up . CPNSS Discussion Paper, DP 77/05, 2005 Killer Instinct: a Review of Niall Ferguson's ;World of War: History's Century of Hatred , Prospect, September 2006 Consciousness: the Achilles heel of Darwinism? Thank God, not quite ,In Intelligent Thought: Science versus the Intelligent Design Movement, ed. John Brockman, pp. 50-64, New York: Vintage, 2006. The society of selves Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 362, 745-754, 2007. Getting the measure of consciousness , Progress of Theoretical Physics Supplement , 2008. Questioning consciousness , Seed Magazine , January/February,30-32, 2008. Beauty's child: sexual selection, nature worship and the love of God .

Bibliografia

Consciousness Regained: Chapters in the Development of Mind, Oxford University Press, 1983. In a Dark Time, (ed. with R.J.Lifton), Faber & Faber 1984, Harvard University Press 1984. The Inner Eye, Faber & Faber 1986. A History of the Mind, Chatto & Windus 1992, Simon & Schuster 1992. Soul Searching: Human Nature and Supernatural Belief, Chatto & Windus 1995. How to Solve the Mind-Body Problem, Imprint Academic, 2000. The Mind Made Flesh: Essays from the Frontiers of Evolution and Psychology, Oxford University Press, 2002. Seeing Red: A Study in Consciousness, Belknap Press/Harvard University Press, 2006. Soul Dust: The Magic of Consciousness, Quercus Publishing 2011, Princeton University Press 2011

Altri progetti

Collegamenti esterni