Semir Zeki
Professor of Neuroesthetics at University College, London
Primarily a vision scientist, Zeki has worked on the organisation of the human visual system, and especially colour vision and its basis in area V4. Discovering that perception of different visual attributes takes different lengths of time, he suggested that consciousness is not unified, proposing his theory of microconsciousnesses. More recently he has been studying the neural correlates of aesthetic responses and emotions, including love, beauty, and hate.
Profile at UCL
Prof Zeki’s Musings (blog)
Twitter @ProfZeki
Publications
List of selected publications at UCL
Quotes on AZ Quotes
Selected publications relevant to consciousness
Barbur, J. L., Watson, J.D.G., Frackowiak, R.S.J., and Zeki, S. (1993). Conscious visual perception without V1. Brain, 116, 1293–1302. Paywall-protected journal record here. Direct PDF download (final version) here.
Moutoussis, K., and Zeki, S. (2002). The relationship between cortical activation and perception investigated with invisible stimuli. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 99, 9527–9532. Open-access full text here.
Zeki, S. (2001). Localization and globalization in conscious vision. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 24, 57–86. Paywall-protected journal record here. Direct PDF download (final version) here.
Zeki, S. (2007). A theory of micro-consciousness. In M. Velmans and S. Schneider (Eds), The Blackwell companion to consciousness (pp. 580–588). Oxford: Blackwell. Google Books preview here.
Zeki, S. (2008). The disunity of consciousness. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7(5), 214–218. Paywall-protected journal record here. Direct PDF download (final version) here.
Zeki, S. (2015). Area V5 – a microcosm of the visual brain. Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, 9, article 21. Open-access full text here.
Zeki, S., and Bartels, A. (1998). The asynchrony of consciousness. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 265, 1583–1585. Direct PDF download (final version) here.
Zeki, S., and Bartels, A. (1999). Toward a theory of visual consciousness. Consciousness and Cognition, 8, 225–259. Paywall-protected journal record here. Direct PDF download (final version) here.
Video
The science of beauty. Royal Society Edinburgh, December 2015
The neurobiology of beauty. TEDxUCL, July 2012Audio
The neurobiology of beauty. University of Oxford podcasts, March 2016