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In Memoriam: Harry G. Sperling, 1924 - 2023
Jul 29, 2023
Harry George Sperling, Optica Fellow and psychologist, passed away on 29 July 2023 at the age of 98. Sperling was known for his contributions to visual perception, color vision, and the physiological basis of color processing in humans and monkeys.
Sperling was born on 26 August 1924 in New York City. He went to Public School 114 in Queens and the Horace Mann School for Boys, a college-preparatory school in the Bronx. Sperling went on to earn a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1944, followed by a Master of Social Science from The New School for Social Research in 1946. Sperling continued his studies and pursued a PhD in Experimental Psychology from Columbia University in 1953 under the supervision of Clarence Graham. Over the course of his research at Columbia, he worked on determining visual functions of a unilaterally color-blind subject.
Apart from his studies, Sperling’s career included an appointment as an Instructor in Psychology at The Johns Hopkins University in 1947 and service as an Experimental Psychologist at the US Navy Submarine Medical Research Laboratory in New London, Connecticut, from 1948 to 1959. At the Research Laboratory, he worked with Commander Dean Farnsworth to detect and classify the characteristics of different types of color blindness. He later served as the Manager of Life Sciences at the Honeywell Federal Services Research Division in Minneapolis, Minnesota, from 1959 to 1967. His work at Honeywell focused on experimental protocols to obtain threshold spectral sensitivity data from rhesus monkeys using operant conditioning techniques.
In 1961, Sperling was appointed Associate Professor of Visual Sciences in Ophthalmology at the University of Minnesota Medical School. In 1967, he became the founding director of The Sensory Sciences Center and professor of Neural Sciences at The University of Texas Health Sciences in Houston, holding the position until his retirement in 1995.
Sperling’s research focused on understanding how color is processed in the retina. He investigated intense light effects on humans and monkeys and color-blinding to explain primate spectral sensitivity. His work with Robert E. Marc pioneered chromatic mapping of retinal photoreceptors. Sperling was recognized for his achievements and elected a Fellow of Optica (formerly The Optical Society) in 1966. In 1982, he received the Award of Merit in Retina Research, and in 1991, the International Colour Vision Society Verriest Medal. Sperling was also appointed to the National Advisory Eye Council of the National Eye Institute from 1975 to 1979.
Optica and the scientific community mourn his loss.
