I created this tribute page for the Parkinson's Foundation in honor of Roger N. Shepard, who suffered from the disease in his later years. He was 93 years old when he died peacefully on May 30, 2022, with his wife of nearly 70 years (Barbaranne), his granddaughter (Alexandra Tansey), and I (his daughter Shenna) at his bedside. He is also survived by two sons, Newland and Todd Shepard.
Roger N. Shepard was born January 30, 1929, in Palo Alto, California. His father, Orson Cutler Shepard, was a pioneer in the field of material sciences and a professor at Stanford University. His mother, Grace Shepard, was an artist who graduated from Stanford University in the early 1920s.
Roger earned his BA from Stanford University and his Ph.D. from Yale University, where he met his wife, Barbaranne, in 1951. He worked at Bell Laboratories before he became a professor of psychology at Harvard University and then at Stanford University, from which he retired in 1995.
His scientific contributions to the field of cognitive psychology are numerous. He wrote several books, chapters in books, and a multitude of research articles for professional scientific journals. He was awarded numerous accolades throughout his career, including The National Medal of Science, The Rumelhart Prize, and the Wilbur Luscious Cross Medal.
His first breakthrough was his invention of non-metric multidimensional scaling, a method of representing certain kinds of statistical data in a graphic form that is used to this day in many of the sciences. He is well-known for his research in the areas of visual and auditory perception, memory, mental imagery and representation, learning theory, and generalization. His studies on mental rotation helped elucidate how the mind spatially represents and moves two and three dimensional objects in order to better recognize and understand them.
He developed a theory called the “Universal Law of Generalization.” In Shepard’s words, “I was convinced that the problem of generalization was the most fundamental problem confronting learning theory. Because we never encounter exactly the same total situation twice, no theory of learning can be complete without a law governing how what is learned in one situation generalizes to another.” The theory stated that the probability of a response to one stimulus being generalized to another is a function of the distance between the two stimuli in psychological space.
He is also known for The Shepard Tone, an auditory illusion of a tone that is perceived to continually ascend or descend in pitch, but in actuality does not move any higher or lower.
Aside from his significant contributions to the field of cognitive science, he was a creative man who composed music, wrote poetry, and was an exceptional photographer and artist (he published a book of his hand-drawn optical illusions called Mind Sights). A loving and loyal husband and father, he was incredibly supportive of both his family members and the many students that he worked with and mentored over the course of his career. He had a keen mind and a delightful sense of humor. He was deeply admired and will be very much missed.
Given his own personal experience with Parkinson’s and his academic interest in the functioning of the mind and brain, it seemed most appropriate to set up this tribute page where people are welcome to donate to the Parkinson’s Foundation in his name. With your support, we can help the foundation's mission to improve the lives of those suffering from Parkinson's. Thank you so much for your support in helping us raise funds and awareness for Parkinson's disease.