A triple issue of the journal, Laterality, (Vol. 21, issues 4-6, July-November, 2016) is titled The Legacy of M.P. Bryden. Phil Bryden was a faculty member at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. He was a major figure in the neuropsychology research community not only in Canada but throughout the world. He was a founding editor, along with I.C. (Chris) McManus and Michael Corballis, of the journal, Laterality, a major outlet for publishing handedness research. The triple issue is a memorial published on the 20th anniversary of Phil’s untimely death in 1996. The issue contains reminiscences from former graduate students, colleagues and family members (Phil’s daughter, Pamela, is a psychologist and handedness researcher) along with current research papers influenced by Phil’s approach to brain/behavior relationships. Phil claimed that the importance of studying handedness rested on what handedness could reveal about the brain.
I cannot pinpoint how and when I first met Phil. I was a faculty member at the University of Victoria in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada from 1974 to 1999. The psychology department at UVic had a graduate program with a strong neuropsychology emphasis and the program sponsored a yearly weekend workshop featuring invited guest speakers from around the neuropsychology world. The workshop was most likely where I first met Phil. I remember having drinks with a group of colleagues one evening after the sessions had ended for the day and Phil was part of the group.
In his tribute to Phil in this special issue of Laterality, Chris McManus mentions Phil’s love of conferences. I certainly remember talking and having dinner with Phil at various conferences in various cites through the 1980’s and early 1990’s. One of these meetings was in Oxford, England where I also met Chris McManus for the first time. In 1984, he asked me to speak at a symposium he organized during the annual convention of the Canadian Psychological Association in Ottawa, Ontario. My talk described my early work on side shifts in handedness…research that continued for the next 20 years. I also recall Phil’s visits to the psychology department at the University of Victoria. Phil liked visiting British Columbia not only to interact with other neuropsychologists but also to add to his collection of West Coast First Nation’s art and carving.
In August, 1996, the International Congress of Psychology, which is held every 4 years, was hosted by the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. I was a member of one of the organizing committees for the conference and also participated in a symposium on laterality with speakers from the USA, France, Australia and Canada. I gave my talk, Eye preference patterns among left-handed adults, where I made frequent references to Phil’s work. I knew he was attending the conference and I assumed he was part of the symposium audience. When the symposium ended, a colleague told me the shocking news. Phil had passed away in his Montreal hotel room that morning.
I was very fond of Phil as a colleague and a friend and I appreciated his support of my work. His death at age 61 extinguished one of the great minds of neuropsychology and one of the avid supporters of research on handedness. The first issue of Laterality, the journal co-founded by Phil, was published in March, 1996 only a few months before Phil’s death. Given the subsequent sad events, I am proud that the inaugural issue of the journal contains one of my research papers, Attempts to switch the writing hand: Relationships to age and side of hand preference.
I always wanted to collaborate on a research paper with Phil. Ironically, that collaboration finally happened when Chris McManus spearheaded a collaborative paper based on data collected by several researchers, one of whom was Phil. The paper, Eye dominance, writing hand, and throwing hand, was published in Laterality in 1999, 3 years after Phil’s death. I was honored to see my name along with Phil and others as co-authors on this paper. I want to remember Phil on the anniversary of his passing with future blog posts that highlight research on the relationships between the various laterality types of hand, eye, foot and ear preference. I regret that Phil is not here to write these blog posts with me.