Alan Cowey FMedSci, FRS (28 April 1935 – 19 December 2012) was a British scientist and academic,^[1] and the Emeritus Professor of Physiological Psychology at the University of Oxford. His primary interest was in the way in which we interpret the visual world.^[1] He gained a BA from the University of Cambridge in 1957 and a PhD from Cambridge in 1961.^[2] He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1988, and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 1998. In 2000 he received an honorary DSc from the University of Durham,^[2] and in 2007 he presented the Royal Society's Ferrier Lecture.^[3]