We are extremely sad to report that Arthur S. Reber, a longtime Psychology professor at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center from 1970 – 2006, passed away on September 2, 2025. He was 85.
Arthur’s scientific research was hugely influential, emphasizing the study of the cognitive foundations of statistical learning processes when the field of cognitive psychology showed relatively little interest in the topic. His best-known work used his “artificial grammar” paradigm to examine the nature of implicit learning: a form of learning in which participants acquire knowledge about the structure of a set of stimuli without explicit awareness of the nature of that structure or even the fact that they have learned it. His 1965 Master’s thesis was the first demonstration of that phenomenon, and his unique methodology moved the field forward in important ways, eventually becoming widely adopted and generating tremendous interest in the so-called cognitive unconscious. Arthur’s later research ranged fearlessly over topics as diverse as the implicit acquisition of attributions of affect, assessments of implicit and explicit learning and memory, the psychology of risk and gambling, tacit knowledge in psychology and sociology, the evolutionary origins of consciousness, and candidate biochemical mechanisms for the emergence of sentience. Among other honors, he was a Senior Fulbright Fellow at the University of Innsbruck (Austria, 1977-1978), an NEH Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Philosophy and Psychology of Mind (1983), and a Fellow of the American Psychological Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences. To date, his scientific work has garnered over 22,000 citations.
Arthur earned his BA in Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania (1961) and MA and PhD in Psychology at Brown University (1965, 1967), working under Richard Millward. Arthur was an Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia before joining Brooklyn College, CUNY, in 1970. He remained at Brooklyn College until his retirement in 2006, serving as Psychology Department Chairperson (1985-1988) and Head of the Experimental Psychology MA and PhD programs (1998-2005). Beginning in 1998, he was Broeklundian Professor of Psychology, an honor awarded only to truly outstanding faculty at Brooklyn College. Among other roles, Arthur’s remarkable contributions included mentoring numerous junior faculty colleagues and dozens of students at all levels – something he was particularly proud of. He was an engaging classroom instructor, a happy warrior who sparked critical thinking and disparaged pseudoscience at every opportunity. He also frequently participated in seminars run by other faculty and engaged in spirited and stimulating discussions. After retirement, Arthur returned to the University of British Columbia as a visiting professor, and his research productivity continued unabated. His latest book, The Sentient Cell: The Cellular Foundations of Consciousness (2023, co-authored with František Baluška and William Miller) appeared when Arthur was 83.
Besides more than 70 academic papers, his other academic books included Toward a Psychology of Reading(1977, co-edited with Don Scarborough), Implicit Learning and Tacit Knowledge: An Essay on the Cognitive Unconscious (1993), The First Minds: Caterpillars, Karyotes, and Consciousness (2019), and The Cognitive Unconscious: The First Half Century (2022, co-edited with his wife, Rhiannon Allen, formerly a Psychology professor at Long Island University). He also wrote The Penguin Dictionary of Psychology (four editions, 1985-2009, some co-authored with Rhiannon Allen and daughter, Emily Reber), which has sold half a million copies in six languages.
Arthur often joked about living two parallel lives: “In one I am a semi-degenerate gambler, a poker junkie, horse player, and blackjack maven; in the other, a scientist specializing in cognitive psychology and related topics in the neurosciences, the origins of consciousness and the philosophy of mind.” On the topic of gambling, he published hundreds of columns and several books, including The New Gambler’s Bible (1996), Gambling for Dummies (2001, co-authored with Richard D. Harroch and Lou Krieger), and Poker, Life, & Other Confusing Things (2012). In 2015, he also published a novel, Xero to Sixty.
Arthur was truly a larger-than-life personality – if you never met him, picture George Carlin as a professor, with everything that would entail – always ready with strong opinions on just about any topic, and that fortunate ability to disagree without being disagreeable. He was an exceptional colleague who immediately put people at ease with his laid back, highly scholarly style, and he championed academic pursuits and promoted his own and others’ students at every opportunity. To his students, Arthur was more than an advisor: he was an inspiration—and their friend.
He is survived by his wife, three children, and five grandchildren. Numerous colleagues and former students preserve his memory. There was no one else quite like him.
– A tribute from colleagues and friends