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David R. Olson
David R. Olson is university professor emeritus of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of Toronto where he has taught for more than 40 years. He graduated from the University of Saskatchewan in 1960 and received his Ph.D. from the University of Alberta in 1963 and did postgraduate work at the Harvard Center for Cognitive Studies with Jerome Bruner. He was recruited to the newly formed Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto in 1966. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and holds honorary doctorates from Gothenburg University (1994), the University of Saskatchewan (1996) and the University of Toronto (2012). Dr Olson has published extensively on language, literacy and cognition, including the widely anthologized article ‘From utterance to text: The bias of language in speech and writing’ (Harvard Educational Review, 1977), an article that argued that the modern mind is essentially a literate mind. This theme is expanded in his book The World on Paper: The Conceptual and Cognitive Implication of Writing and Reading (Cambridge University Press, 1994). His most recent books are The Mind on Paper: Reading, Consciousness and Rationality (Cambridge University Press, 2016) and Making Sense: What We Mean by Understanding (Cambridge University Press, 2022).
Contact: Applied Psychology and Human Development, University of Toronto, 252 Bloor St. W., Toronto, Ontario M5S 1V6, Canada.