Examples of Ongoing Research
Cortical retinotopy and specificity of perceptual learning revealed by EEG
In our daily lives our brains are constantly adapting to new visual experiences and learning optimal solutions to new tasks. Understanding the mechanisms of neural plasticity is crucial to develop sound training paradigms. One important step is to identify cortical sites that participate in learning new tasks and their relative dynamics. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) gives insight to the sites of perceptual learning but technologies like electroencephalography (EEG) are needed to reveal the dynamic interplay between cortical areas that change with learning. This project has two broad goals: 1) to develop methods for using EEG for isolating the event related activity in closely spaced regions of human cortex in response to visual stimulation. The challenge is that when the sources of brain waves are spatially close together, it has so far been an intractable problem to isolate the activity to individual brain areas. And: 2) to use these new methods to identify the locations and temporal dynamics of changes produced by perceptual learning of challenging visual tasks.
For details and abstract see: National Science Foundation (NSF)
Processes and mechanisms of perceptual learning in normal and compromised vision
The broad aim of our this project is to gain a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of perceptual learning (PL) in normal and compromised visual systems that could potentially benefit from effective perceptual learning paradigms. Using advanced psychophysical methods, we aim to identify the mechanisms underlying the losses and to what extent perceptual learning can ameliorate these losses. In addition, by identifying the underlying mechanisms of PL we anticipate being able to explain the large individual differences commonly found in PL studies.
For details and abstract see: National Eye Institute (NEI)
New Research
Single cone psychophysics
On September 1, 2011 funding for our collaborative project with Prof. Austin Roorda will begin. It will usher in the first time that single cone psychophysics can be done on humans. This new technological capability will enable us to learn about fine grained properties of retinal processing, including context dependence of color, spatial distortions and nonlinear dynamics. A number of specific projects are being planned.
