From Optical Society of America, Obituaries
Robert M. Boynton was born on October 28, 1924, in Evanston, IL. He attended Amherst College in Massachusetts where he received an undergraduate degree. At Brown University in Providence, RI, he received in 1952 his Ph.D. degree in psychology. Soon after, he became an assistant professor of psychology at Rochester University, NY where, in 1963, he founded their Center for Visual Science. In 1974, he moved to the University of California San Diego where he remained until his retirement in 1991, in his final years being the associate dean in the Office of Graduate Studies and Research.
Boynton was the recipient of the OSA Tillyer Medal in 1971, the Frederick Ives Medal in 1995, and the Prentice Medal of the American Academy of Optometry in 1997. In 1981, he was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences. After his retirement, he concentrated on his hobby, research of baseball, writing articles such as “Three Hours Instead of Five: Playing a 2000 World Series Game at the 1948 Pace” published in the journal “Grandstand Baseball Annual.” Boynton died on September 4, 2006 [1].
91.1 Boynton MacLeod Physiological Color Space
His key activities revolved around experiments providing new information concerning the neurophysiological processes involved in vision and specifically color vision in the eyes and the brain. He is perhaps best known for his book Human color vision of 1979 published in a second, revised edition, co-authored by P. K. Kaiser, published by the Optical Society of America in 1996 [2]. He had a variety of additional research interests, including physiological optics, light adaptation and temporal sensitivity.
Cone excitation isoluminant chromaticity diagram of the MacLeod and Boynton physiological color space
During his academic career, Boynton authored and co-authored at least 35 important articles on human color vision. From 1982 to 86, he was also the chairman of the board of editors for the journal Vision Research.