I was born in Tarnow, Poland. I attended "Szkola Cwiczen" elementary school and "III LO im. A. Mickiewicza" high school, both in my hometown. I received my M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering in 1978 (Politechnika, Warsaw, Poland) and Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering in 1982 (Institute of Electron Technology, Warsaw, Poland). I then decided to pursue my interests in, and passion for natural sciences. Having been already exposed to elements of AI during my engineering education, I became absolutely fascinated with the possibility of studying the human mind. With this as my ultimate goal, I started with visual psychophysics, as the most mature branch of experimental psychology. I received my Ph.D. degree in psychology from the University of Maryland at College Park. Bob Steinman and Azriel Rosenfeld were my advisers.

My wife Irmina is a Professor of Cardiology at UC Irvine. Our son Filip is a computer scientist interested in real time Java programming, gamma ray recording and photography.