Christopher Tyler

Christopher W. Tyler is a visual neuroscientist, creator of the autostereogram (“Magic Eye” pictures) and is the Head of the Smith-Kettlewell Brain Imaging Center. He also holds a Professorship at City University of London.

Shortly after earning his PhD at the University of Keele (1970), Dr. Tyler became a Research Fellow at Bell Labs (1974–75), where he worked with Bela Julesz, a vision scientist, psychologist and MacArthur Fellow. Julesz is well known for his invention of the random dot stereogram, which used a computer to create a stereo pair of random-dot images. When viewed under a stereoscope it caused the brain to see 3-dimensional shapes. This proved that depth perception is a neurological process. After leaving Bell Labs, Tyler took a position at Smith-Kettlewell Institute of Visual Sciences.

Tyler's scientific interests are in visual perception and visual neuroscience. His research has contributed to the study of form, symmetry, flicker, motion, color, and stereoscopic depth perception in adults and he has developed tests for the diagnosis of eye diseases in infants and of retinal and optic nerve diseases in adults. He has also studied visual processing and photoreceptor dynamics in other species such as butterflies and fish.

His recent scientific work concerns theoretical, psychophysical and functional MRI studies of the structure of global processes such as structure from motion, symmetry, figure/ground and stereoscopic depth perception and their susceptibility to damage in traumatic brain injury.

Tyler's present and recent past associates include Lora Likova, Josh Solomon, Chien-Chung Chen, Spero Nicholas, Mark Schira, Lenny Kontsevich, Russ Hamer, Anthony Norcia, Lauren Barghout, Amy Ione.

Shortly after arriving at Smith-Kettlewell (in 1979) Tyler significantly advanced Julesz’s random dot stereogram research when he invented the first “random-dot autostereogram” (also known as single-image random-dot stereogram). The invention of the autostereogram made it possible for a person to see 3-dimensional shapes from a single 2-dimensional image without the aid of optical equipment. These images were later known as the “Magic Eye” after they were popularized by several N.E. Thing Enterprises publications that spent a number of weeks on the New York Times Bestsellers list.

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