I first met Jon in the late 1980's when, like him, I was working in the field of visual cognition. We were both visiting speakers at UCSD, with talks scheduled on consecutive days with titles that turned out to be something like "Evidence that 'object-centered' neglect is actually spatial" (my talk, on the first day) and "Evidence that neglect is object-centered" (his title, second day). He arrived after my talk but I was at his and of course the audience was also there for both.
He was as brilliant back then as ever, while also exuding a certain youthful self-confidence, so everyone expected discord. Instead he engaged with his intellect and not at all with his ego, and we had a fabulous rollicking discussion! He had the ability to focus on the scientific question and think so incisively and creatively about it without personal negativity. It was that combination of intellectual brilliance and genuine love for the science that made him such a fount of inspiration to us all.
