Brian Butterworth

Who is Brian Butterworth?

Brian Butterworth FBA is emeritus professor of cognitive neuropsychology in the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London. His research has ranged from speech errors and pauses, short-term memory deficits, dyslexia, reading both in alphabetic scripts and Chinese, and mathematics and dyscalculia. His book The Mathematical Brain has been translated into four languages. He was Editor-in-Chief of Linguistics and a founding editor of the journals, "Language and Cognitive Processes" and "Mathematical Cognition". He is a Fellow of the British Academy.

In 1984 he diagnosed President Ronald Reagan on the basis of speech errors in his presidential re-election speeches in an article in the Sunday Times as having Alzheimer's disease ten years before this was formally identified. He was a coauthor in 1971 of a pamphlet, Marked for life, critical of university examinations.

He designed the world’s largest mathematical experiment involving over 18,000 people at Explore-At-Bristol.