J. Kevin O'Regan

John Kevin O'Regan is director of the "Laboratoire de Psychologie Expérimentale" (Laboratory of Experimental Psychology) at the Université René Descartes, Paris 5 (CNRS).

After studying theoretical physics at Sussex and Cambridge Universities, he moved to Paris in 1975 to work in experimental psychology at the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique (CNRS).

Following his Ph. D. on eye movements in reading he showed the existence of an optimal position for the eye to fixate in images and words. His interest in the problem of the perceived stability of the visual world led him to question established notions of the nature of visual perception, and to discover, with collaborators, the phenomenon of change blindness.

His current work involves exploring the empirical consequences of a new sensorimotor approach to vision and sensation in general. He is particularly interested in the problem of the nature of phenomenal stream of consciousness, which he addresses experimentally in relation to sensory substitution, and theoretically in relation to color perception. He is interested in applying this work to robotics.

His work about phenomal states exemplifying conscious conception of themselves has been used within R.A.Wilson externalist framework to ongoing research and debate within the study of consciousness (Boundaries of the Mind: The Individual in the Fragile Sciences, ISBN 978-0521544948, introducing the clunky acronym TESEE: Temporally Extended, Scaffolded, and Embodied and Embedded).