Stephen Kosslyn

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Stephen Michael Kosslyn (born in 1948) is an American psychologist. He is currently a professor of psychology and chair of the department of psychology at Harvard University and a researcher in the fields of cognitive psychology and neuroscience.

Kosslyn received his B.A. in 1970 from UCLA and his Ph.D. in 1974 from Stanford University, both in psychology. His former teaching career includes Johns Hopkins and Brandeis Universities.

Kosslyn is mostly known for his research and theories on mental imagery. His theory is that, contrary to common assumption, imagery is not a unified phenomenon. It consists of a collection of numerous distinct functions; these functions are responsible for different aspects of imagery. His research, which includes fMRI-imaging and similar techniques, has located these functions to different neural networks, some of which are in different cerebral hemispheres of the brain. For example, his laboratory demonstrated that the left hemisphere is much better at encoding categories and producing mental images on the basis of categories, whereas the right hemisphere is better at encoding specific examples or continuous distances and at producing images that have such characteristics.

Kosslyn also works on visual display design, showing how psychological principles can be used to produce displays that can be read at a glance. Most recently, he has extended this work to showing how psychological principles can be used to make and deliver PowerPoint presentations.

He has received numerous honors for his research. These include the National Academy of Sciences Initiatives in Research Award and the Prix Jean-Louis Signoret. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Society of Experimental Psychologists.

Kosslyn has published over 250 scientific papers and written or co-authored 15 books and edited or co-edited 13 books; his authored books include Image and Mind (1980), Ghosts in the Mind's Machine (1983), Wet Mind (1992, with Olivier Koenig), Elements of Graph Design (1994), Image and Brain (1994), The Case for Mental Imagery (2006, with Thompson and Ganis), Graph Design for the Eye and Mind (2006), and Clear and to the Point: 8 Psychological Principles for Compelling PowerPoint Presentations (2007). He is also the co-author (with Rosenberg) of the textbooks Psychology: The Brain, the Person, the World (2000, 2004), Psychology in Context (2006), and (with Smith) Cognitive Psychology: Mind and Brain.