Sergei Kravkov

Born on May 19 (31), 1893, in Riazan; died Mar. 16, 1951, in Moscow. Soviet physiologist and psychologist. Corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR (1946). Honored Scientist of the RSFSR (1947).

Kravkov graduated from Moscow University in 1916. He was a student of P. P. Lazarev. From 1931 to 1951 he directed a laboratory in the Institute of Psychology. In 1936 he became head of the laboratory of the physiology of optics which he organized in the Helmholtz Institute of Eye Diseases, and in 1945 he became director of the laboratory of the physiology of optics which he established in the Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

Kravkov studied visual function in man and its interaction with other sense organs. He discovered a number of patterns of vision changes in response to photic, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and other stimuli. He also observed an increase in the photosensitivity of the eye after its exposure to red light. Kravkov also elucidated the role of various ions in color vision.