David Burr

David Burr is Professor of Psychology in the School of Psychology, Faculty of Science, at the University of Sydney. He also serves as Professor Emeritus of Physiological Psychology at the University of Florence and is affiliated with the CNR Institute of Neuroscience in Pisa, Italy, and the Department of Psychology at the University of Florence. Burr completed his undergraduate studies in psychology at the University of Western Australia and obtained his PhD in psychology and physiology from the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Fergus Campbell. His academic career includes appointment as Professor at the University of Florence starting in 1997, alongside ongoing collaborations and appointments at the University of Sydney.

Burr's research interests encompass motion perception, numerosity perception, visual stability and spatiotopicity, perception of time, multisensory integration, and perceptual anomalies in autism. He has authored influential publications, including 'The ventriloquist effect results from near-optimal bimodal integration' in Current Biology (2004), 'When the world becomes too real: a Bayesian explanation of autistic perception' in Trends in Cognitive Sciences (2012), 'A visual sense of number' in Current Biology (2008), 'Selective suppression of the magnocellular visual pathway during saccadic eye movements' in Nature (1994), 'Compression of visual space before saccades' in Nature (1997), and 'Saccadic eye movements cause compression of time as well as space' in Nature Neuroscience (2005). More recent works include 'Positive serial dependence in ratings of food images for appeal and calories' in Current Biology (2024), 'The pupil responds spontaneously to perceived numerosity' in Nature Communications (2021), and 'A Sensorimotor Numerosity System' in Trends in Cognitive Sciences (2021). In 2018, Burr was elected a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia in recognition of his distinguished contributions to psychology and society. His research has significantly shaped understanding of perceptual processes through high-impact publications in leading journals and extensive international collaborations, including with colleagues at the University of Sydney such as Professor David Alais.

Professional Email: david.burr@sydney.edu.au