John A. Michon

Professor emeritus of psychonomics
Leiden University, The Netherlands

Brief CV

John A. Michon (1935) is emeritus professor of psychonomics (cognitive psychology) at Leiden University. Following an early career as a research scientist at the (then) TNO Institute for Perception in Soesterberg (1960-1973), he was appointed professor and chair of experimental psychology and professor of traffic science at the University of Groningen (1971-1992) and, subsequently, director of the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Criminality and Law Enforcement (NSCR) in Leiden and research professor of criminal psychology and law enforcement at Leiden University (1992-1998). Finally, from 1998 until his retirement in 2002 he was senior research professor of psychonomics at Leiden University.

His research, over the past fifty years, has covered a variety of areas in cognitive psychology, psychophysics, ergonomics, traffic safety, and the behavioural sciences in general. In particular he has entertained a career-long interest in the temporal structure of cognition and (skilled) performance.

He has been actively engaged in promoting the cause of cognitive science in the Netherlands and abroad. He is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (since 1981) and the Academia Europea (London, 1989). He holds a doctorate honoris causa from the University of Liège in Belgium (1995) and a Knighthood in the Order of the Netherlands Lion (2002).