Michael Corballis

Michael Charles Corballis (born 10 September 1936) is a New Zealand psychologist and author. He is emeritus professor at the Department of Psychology at the University of Auckland. His fields of research are cognitive neuroscience, including visual perception, visual imagery, attention, memory and the evolution of language.
Early life and family.
Corballis was born in Marton, New Zealand, in 1936, the son of Philip Patrick Joseph Corballis and Alice Elizabeth Harris. In 1962, he married Barbara Elizabeth Wheeler, and they went on to have two sons. Barbara Corballis died in 2020.
Education and career.
Corballis was educated at Wanganui Collegiate School and earned a Master's degree in Mathematics at the University of New Zealand in 1959 and attained a Master of Arts in psychology at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, in 1962. He then moved to McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where he gained a PhD in psychology in 1965, and taught in the Department of Psychology from 1968 to 1978. During his years as a professor at McGill, the main focus of his research was in cognitive neuroscience, analyzing complex cognitive systems such as perception, attention and memory, and initiating a research program on cerebral asymmetry. He was appointed professor of psychology at the University of Auckland in 1978. In recent years, the interests of Corballis have turned to evolutionary biology, contributing significantly to complex cognitive processes. Of great international importance was his hypothesis that human language evolved from gestures, expressed in the book "From hand to mouth". His work is widely quoted.
Honours and awards.
In 1999, Corballlis was awarded the Shorland Medal by the New Zealand Association of Scientists. In the 2002 Queen's Birthday and Golden Jubilee Honours, he was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to psychological science. In 2016, he received the Royal Society of New Zealand's Rutherford Medal.