Biography:Zenon Pylyshyn

Short description: Canadian cognitive scientist (1937–2022)

Zenon Pylyshyn FRSC
Born	(1937-08-25)25 August 1937 Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Died	6 December 2022(2022-12-06) (aged 85) The Bronx, New York, United States
Era	20th-century philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Analytic philosophy rationalism cognitivism functionalism
Main interests	Vision cognitive science information theory
Notable ideas	Visual indexing theory

Zenon Walter Pylyshyn FRSC (/ˈzɛnən pəˈlɪʃən/; 25 August 1937 – 6 December 2022) was a Canadian cognitive scientist and philosopher. He was a Canada Council Senior Fellow from 1963 to 1964.

Pylyshyn's research generally involved the theoretical analysis of the nature of the human cognitive systems behind perception, imagination, and reasoning. He developed visual indexing theory (sometimes called the FINST theory) which hypothesizes a pre-conceptual mechanism responsible for individuating, tracking, and directly (or demonstratively) referring to the visual objects that could be interrogated by cognitive processes. His very influential multiple object tracking experiment methodology emerged from this work.

Early life and education

Pylyshyn was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, to Ukrainian immigrants Anna and Yuriy. He obtained a degree in Engineering Physics (BEng 1959) from McGill University and in control systems (MSc 1960) and experimental psychology (PhD 1963), both from the Regina Campus, University of Saskatchewan. His dissertation was on the application of information theory to studies of human short-term memory.

Career

Pylyshyn was a Canada Council Senior Fellow from 1963 to 1964. He was then professor of Psychology and Computer Science, at the University of Western Ontario in London, from 1964 until 1994, where he also held honorary positions in Philosophy and Electrical Engineering and was director of the UWO Center for Cognitive Science. From 1985 to 1994, he directed the program in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.

In 1994, he accepted positions as the Board of Governors Professor of Cognitive Science and as the director of the new Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science in New Brunswick, New Jersey. In May 2016 Rutgers held a one-day "ZenFest", to commemorate his retirement.

Death

Pylyshyn died, on 6 December 2022, at Calvary Hospital in New York City.

Selected publications

Articles

• Pylyshyn, Z. W. (1973). "What the Mind's Eye Tells the Mind's Brain". Psychological Bulletin 80: 1–24. doi:10.1037/h0034650. 
• Pylyshyn, Z. W.; Fodor, Jerry (1988). "Connectionism and cognitive architecture: A critical analysis". Cognition 28 (1–2): 3–71. doi:10.1016/0010-0277(88)90031-5. PMID 2450716. 
• Pylyshyn, Z. W. (June 2001). "Visual Indexes, Preconceptual Objects, and Situated Vision". Cognition 80 (1–2): 127–158. doi:10.1016/S0010-0277(00)00156-6. PMID 11245842. http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/images/personal-zenon-pylyshyn/docs/cognition2001-reprint.pdf. 

Books

• Computation and Cognition: Toward a Foundation for Cognitive Science (MIT Press, 1984) ISBN 978-0-262-6605-87
• Meaning and Cognitive Structure: Issues in the Computational Theory of Mind (Ablex Publishing, 1986) ISBN 978-0-893-9137-24
• The Robot's Dilemma: The Frame Problem in Artificial Intelligence (1987), Ablex Publishing, 1987) ISBN 0-893-9137-15
• Perspectives on the Computer Revolution (with Liam J. Bannon, Intellect 1988) ISBN 978-0-893-9136-94
• Computational Processes in Human Vision: An Interdisciplinary Perspective (ed. Zenon Pylyshyn, Intellect, 1988) ISBN 978-0-893-9146-08
• The Robot's Dilemma Revisited (ed. Zenon Pylyshyn, with K. M. Ford, Ablex, 1996) ISBN 978-1-567-5014-21
• Seeing and Visualizing: It's Not What You Think (MIT Press, 2004) ISBN 978-0-262-1621-73
• Things and Places: How the Mind Connects with the World (MIT Press, 2007) (Jean Nicod Lecture Series) ISBN 978-0-262-5161-43

As co-author

• Fodor, Jerry A.; Pylyshyn, Zenon W. (2015). Minds Without Meanings: An Essay on the Content of Concepts. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0262027908. 

See also

• Connectionism

References

Works cited

• Center for Cognitive Science (10 February 2016). "ZenFest (photos and videos now available)". In The News. Rutgers University. https://ruccs.rutgers.edu/news-channel/in-the-news/348-zenfest. 
• Center for Cognitive Science (n.d.). "Dr. Zenon Pylyshyn". Rutgers University. https://ruccs.rutgers.edu/zenon. 
• The Globe and Mail (8–12 December 2022). "Zenon Pylyshyn Obituary". Toronto. https://www.legacy.com/ca/obituaries/theglobeandmail/name/zenon-pylyshyn-obituary?pid=203379080. 
• Schachter, Seymour [sic.] (1997). "Pylyshyn, Zenon Walter". in Sheehy, N.; Chapman, A. J.; Conroy, W.. Biographical Dictionary of Psychology. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0415099974. 
• Viger, C. (2005). "Pylyshyn, Zenon Walter". in Shook, John R.. The Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers. ISBN 978-0199754663. https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100356193. Retrieved 2022-03-21.