Paul Linton is a Fellow in Art, Humanities, and Neuroscience at the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies, Columbia University (New York, US) and a Presidential Scholar in Society and Neuroscience, Columbia University. He is leading the project New Approach to 3D Vision at the Italian Academy.
Born in London (UK), Linton studied law at Oxford University and Leiden University, and philosophy and economics at New York University (US), Harvard University (Cambridge, US) and Columbia University. He returned to the UK, first as a stipendiary lecturer in law at Oxford University, and then as an associate lecturer (teaching fellow) in philosophy at University College London.
Linton shifted his focus to vision science in 2016, writing his book The Perception and Cognition of Visual Space (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) and subsequently earning a PhD in vision science at the Centre for Applied Vision Research at City, University of London in 2021. There, he was also a PhD research intern for Meta Reality Labs Research. He joined Columbia University in 2022 as both a fellow of the Italian Academy and a Presidential Scholar in Society and Neuroscience.
Research Focus
Linton’s research focuses on how we see in 3D, with an emphasis on “stereo vision” (3D vision based on the different viewpoints of the two eyes). Our basic understanding of stereo vision hasn’t changed dramatically since it was discovered in 1838. However, Linton develops an alternative model of stereo vision in his paper “Minimal Theory of 3D Vision: New Approach to Visual Scale and Visual Shape,” which was also published in his Royal Society volume New Approaches to 3D Vision (2023).
His current research focuses on testing and developing this new theory of stereo vision. Specifically, Linton has developed a new illusion, the “Linton Stereo Illusion,” which challenges the intuitive idea (which dates back to Descartes) that, in stereo vision, the brain is trying to reconstruct the position of points in the world, and argues that, instead, our perception of 3D reflects — in a very direct and unexpected way — the projections on the retina.