Michael von Grünau, Canadian psychologist and neurophysiologist, died he was 67.

Michael von Grünau, BSc, MA, PhD was a Canadian psychologist and neurophysiologist at Concordia University died he was 67..^[1]

^{(October 3, 1944 – December 22, 2011)} 

Life and career

Michael von Grünau was born in West Germany, the son of Viktoria Hanke and Werner von Grünau. His father was a translator and a writer; his mother was a housewife and a writing assistant for her husband.
von Grünau grew up in West Germany, but emigrated to Canada in about 1965 to study Physics at University of Toronto. He graduated in 1968, but then commenced a MA in Psychology, graduating in 1971, and a PhD, graduating in 1975. His PhD was supervised by Paul Kolers.
Around this time, he conducted research into the Color Phi phenomenon, investigating the influence of color on apparent movement from stationary images and also the fluttering heart phenomenon in which a red patch on a blue background appears to jump around as an observer moves his or her eyes.
In the early 1980s von Grünau moved to the Department of Psychology at Queen's University at Kingston, where he founded a neurophysiology laboratory to study the visual system of cats. He continued his psychophysical studies of human visual perception. Key research he accomplished during this period included ????.
In about 1987, von Grünau spent about 18 months as a postdoctoral fellow at the National Research Council (Canada) in the Division of Physics, under the supervision of Bill Cowan. He worked mainly with Patrick Cavanagh.
In 1989, von Grünau moved to the Department of Psychology at Concordia University in Montreal. There he worked mainly in the psychophysics of human visual perception, on phenomena surrounding higher-order motion aftereffects, visual search and attention in the real world, visual flow fields, and eye movements.
In 1991, von Grünau married Marinez de Andrade. They adopted a son, Fernando in 1999, from Brazil, and a daughter, Gabriela, in 2002, from China.
von Grünau died on 22 December 2011, from cancer.


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