John Duncan (psychologist)

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John Duncan (born May 15, 1953 ) is a British psychologist and neuroscientist.

Duncan studied psychology and physiology at Oxford, where he received his doctorate in 1976. As a post-doctoral student he was at the University of Oregon and from 1978 researched at the Medical Research Council in Cambridge in the Applied Psychology Unit, now the Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, of which he is Deputy Director.

Duncan's research is interdisciplinary and uses, for example, functional imaging of the brain with magnetic resonance tomography, behavioral analysis and electrophysiology on individual neurons. Initially, from the 1980s onwards, he dealt with the neural mechanism (visual) attention, and later with the neural basis of intelligence in general. He examines normal people as well as those with deficits due to brain damage, and both humans and monkeys. He also wrote a book on intelligence for a wider audience.

In the 1980s he developed a biased competition model for the mechanism of attention in the brain. Then there is a competition of various stimuli for attention, which are selected which best fit the current task of the brain. The model is considered fundamental in cognitive neuroscience and has been used to study phenomena as diverse as emotions, language, and memory.

His neural theory of intelligence is based on his observation of multifunctional brain areas with magnetic resonance. They form a multiple demand neural network that can execute structured, abstract programs and targeted tasks. He also developed neurological tests for the IQ, which can serve as a supplement to psychological tests and also provide approaches for new ways of comparing biological and artificial intelligence.

In 2012 he received the CL de Carvalho Heineken Prize for Cognitive Science . He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and the British Association for the Advancement of Science .

Fonts (selection)

  • Selective attention and the organization of visual information, J. Exp. Psychol. Gen., Volume 113, 1984, pp. 501-517
  • with GW Humphreys: Visual search and stimulus similarity, Psychol. Rev., Volume 96, 1989, pp. 433-458
  • with R. Desimone: Neural mechanisms of selective visual attention, Annual Rev. Neuroscience, Volume 18, 1995, pp. 193-222
  • with H. Emslie, P. Williams, R. Johnson, C. Freer: Intelligence and the frontal lobe: the organization of goal-directed behavior, Cognitive Psychology, Volume 30, 1996, pp. 257-303
  • with RJ Seitz J: Kolodny, D. Bor, H. Herzog, A. Ahmed, FN Newell, H. Emslie: A neural basis for general intelligence, Science, Volume 289, 2000, pp. 457-460
  • with AM Owen: Common regions of the human frontal lobe recruited by diverse cognitive demands, Trends Neuroscience, Volume 23, 2000, pp. 475-483
  • An adaptive coding model of neural function in prefrontal cortex, Nature Rev. Neuroscience, Volume 2, 2001, pp. 820-829
  • Frontal praise function and general intelligence: why it matters, Cortex, Volume 41, 2005, pp. 215-217
  • The multiple-demand (MD) system of the primate brain: mental programs for intelligent behavior, Trends Cognitive Science, Volume 14, 2010, pp. 172-179
  • The structure of cognition: attentional episodes in mind and brain, Neuron, Volume 80, 2013, pp. 35-50
  • with MG Stokes a. a .: Dynamic coding for cognitive control in prefrontal cortex, Neuron, Volume 78, 2013, pp. 364-375
  • How Intelligence happens, Yale University Press, 2012, ISBN 978-0300177725

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Laudation for the Heineken Prize 2012
  2. ^ Heineken Prize laudatory speech


personal data
SURNAME Duncan, John
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British psychologist and neuroscientist
DATE OF BIRTH May 15, 1953