15 Facts About Neil O'Connor

Neil O'Connor was an experimental psychologist, born in Geraldton, Western Australia.

Neil O'Connor studied Philosophy and Experimental Psychology in Oxford and served in India in the Second World War.

Neil O'Connor became interested in studying the extent to with learning disabled individuals could still learn when studying for a PhD at the Institute of Psychiatry.

Until 1968 O'Connor was a member of the Medical Research Council Social Psychiatry Unit at the Institute of Psychiatry.

Neil O'Connor received the Kennedy Prize for his work with Jack Tizard.

Neil O'Connor believed in having a very small group of independent scientists.

Students of Neil O'Connor include Kim Kirsner, John Sloboda, Barbara Dodd and Linda Pring.

Neil O'Connor was a pioneer in the experimental study of cognitive abilities in children with learning disabilities, various referred to as intellectual disability or subnormality.

Neil O'Connor applied the advances in psychology that originated from information processing.

Neil O'Connor studied processes underlying perception, memory, language and spatial abilities with refined behavioural methods and derived new knowledge from comparing individuals with different levels of general intellectual ability.

Neil O'Connor's aim was to see whether there were specific deficits over and above general deficits.

Neil O'Connor therefore compared different groups of participants with known specific deficits, such as visual or auditory impairments to investigate the impact of such impairments, if any, on general abilities.

Neil O'Connor recognised that the study of special talents was another route to elucidate the architecture of the mind.

Neil O'Connor considered it likely that there were specific modules in the mind that could be differentially affected by brain pathology.

Neil O'Connor was the author of a large number of scientific articles between 1950 and 1994.