Carpenter was educated at Gresham's School, Holt, Norfolk, where he was a member of Farfield (1958–1963),[2] and then at Cambridge.

Before being appointed as Professor of Oculomotor Physiology in the University of Cambridge, Carpenter was a Director of Studies in Medicine at Caius College.

He was the creator of EPIC (the Experimental Physiology Instrumentation Computer) and NeuroLab, a set of interactive demonstrations on the working of the human brain.

This work has inspired a model referred to as LATER (Linear Approach to Threshold with Ergodic Rate) to explain the decision mechanism.

Technological advances enabled oculomotor measurements to be made both quickly and non-invasively, using micro-devices which have many clinical applications.

[8] He also had professional interests in vision in general, motor systems, and physiological mechanisms of consciousness.

[3] On a Cambridge web site, Carpenter described himself as "Philosopher, mad scientist, and artiste extraordinaire".

[3] Genest, W., Hammond, R. & Carpenter, R. H. S. The random dot tachistogram: a novel task that elucidates the functional architecture of decision.

Story, G. W. & Carpenter, R. H. S. Dual LATER-unit model predicts saccadic reaction time distributions in gap, step and appearance tasks.

2009; 193:287-296 Roos, J. C. P., Calandrini, D. M. & Carpenter, R. H. S. A single mechanism for the timing of spontaneous and evoked saccades.

Temel, Y., Visser-Vandewalle, V. & Carpenter, R. H. S. Saccadic latency during electrical stimulation of the human subthalamic nucleus.

McDonald, S. A., Carpenter, R. H. S. & Shillcock R. C. An anatomically-constrained, stochastic model of eye movement control in reading.

Carpenter, R. H. S. Contrast, probability and saccadic latency: evidence for independence of detection and decision.

Nouraei, S. A. R., de Pennington, N., Jones, J. G. & Carpenter, R. H. S. Dose-related effect of sevoflurane sedation on the higher control of eye movements and decision-making.

& Asrress, K. N. & Carpenter, R. H. S. Accuracy, information and response time in a saccadic decision task.

Journal of Neurophysiology 2003; 90: 3538-46 Leach, J. C. D. & Carpenter, R. H. S. Saccadic choice with asynchronous targets: evidence for independent randomisation.

Carpenter, R. H. S. & Williams, M. L. L. Neural computation of log likelihood in the control of saccadic eye movements.