Background
Holyoak was born in Langley, British Columbia, Canada, in 1950.
psychologist translator university professor author
Holyoak was born in Langley, British Columbia, Canada, in 1950.
He received his Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of British Columbia in 1971, and his Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology from Stanford University in 1976.
Not to be confused with New Zealand politician Keith Holyoake. Holyoak"s work focuses on the role of analogy in thinking. His work showed how analogy can be used to enhance learning of new abstract concepts by both children and adults, as well as how reasoning breaks down in cases of brain damage.
Holyoak is also a poet.
He has published three collections of his own poems, My Minotaur, Foreigner and The Gospel According to Judas, as well as a collection of translations of classical Chinese poetry by Li Bai and Du Fu, Facing the Moon. His doctoral advisor was Gordon Bower.
He was on the faculty of the University of Michigan from 1976-1986, and then joined the faculty of the University of California, Los Angeles, where he is a Distinguished Professor of Psychology. He served as Chair of the Governing Board of the Society (1994-1995) and Editor of the journals Cognitive Psychology (1995-1999) and Psychological Review(from 2016).
Holyoak received a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in 1991, and a James McKeen Cattell Fellowship in 1999.
He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Association for Psychological Science, the Society, and of the Society of Experimental Psychologists. The Analogical Mind: Perspectives from. (translator) (2007).