Katy Inglis joins the AVL

Biography:
After completing my undergraduate degree at Dundee, I liked it so much I decided to come back and do my PhD! Throughout my undergraduate years I'd developed a strong interest in how people interact non-verbally and how these non-verbal cues like body language and gaze direction could give information contrary to what a person was actually saying. Pairing this with my interest in magic seemed like the perfect idea as magicians are some of the most skilled people in the art of non-verbal communication. As I learned more about the Psychology of Magic, I discovered it is an area rich with questions to be asked and answered through psychological research. My own project investigates how people learn magic tricks. I think it's a really exciting project because magic is one of the only skills people learn in the real world where vision and action are decoupled - that is, you can't look at what you're doing while you're doing it less you give the game away! Learning skills where vision is decoupled from action hasn't really been investigated to any great extent, and certainly not with a task that's used in the real world. I'm excited to see what happens and to learn some new tricks myself along the way.

Ross Macdonald joins the AVL

Biography:
I attained my BSc in Psychology and my MSc in Eye Movements and Cognition from the University of Dundee. For my undergraduate dissertation I studied the effects of speaking multiple dialects on language production. My Masters research was conducted in the AVL and investigated the role of gaze in communication, using a real-world eye-tracking paradigm. My current research expands on my MSc work and focuses on the role of gaze and dialogue in natural collaboration.

Dr Sara Spotorno joins the AVL

Biography:
My Ph.D., co-supervised by Prof. Sylvane Faure (University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis, France) and Prof. Sergio Morra (University of Genoa, Italy), considered hemispheric asymmetry as well as the influence of perceptual and semantic properties in detecting visual changes. I then went on a 1 year postdoctoral project in Nice on multi-format (verbal and non-verbal) representations, studying the role of the cerebral hemispheres and the contribution of repetitive bilateral saccades to the memory of this type of information.

At the AVL I am now working as a postdoctoral researcher on a project examining how scene context and object information are used during a search task in real world images. In particular, we investigate whether both types of information can be processed simultaneously during the first fixation. We are also interested in analyzing what the functional goal of the visual system is when utilising each high-level information source over the course of viewing a scene.

I continue to collaborate with Sylvane Faure (Nice) and with Sergio Morra and Francesco Benso (Genoa) on hemispheric functional specialization and interaction in the processing of verbal and non-verbal information and in visual change detection.

Royal Society of Edinburgh Young Academy of Scotland

Ben Tatler has been made a member of the newly established Royal Society of Edinburgh Young Academy of Scotland. The establishment of the Young Academy brings together 68 young academics, entrepreneurs, artists and professionals in Scotland.

The aim of this initiative is to stimulate creative ideas and collaborative working that will help address some of the key challenges facing Scotland and contribute to solving some of the global challenges of the 21st Century. The Young Academy will provide a platform for Scotland’s best and most forward-looking young scholars. It will provide a unique forum for its members to engage with talented individuals beyond their own discipline or profession.

New arrivals

We are delighted that four new members will be joining the AVL this summer. Dr Sara Spotorno joins the lab on a 1-year project funded by the ESRC. Katy Inglis, Clare Kirtley, Ross Macdonald will all join to start PhDs in the lab at the end of the summer.

More details about these new members and their projects will follow soon.

New paper - Eye guidance in natural vision: Reinterpreting salience

Tatler, B. W., Hayhoe, M. M., Land, M. F., & Ballard, D. H. (2011). Eye guidance in natural vision: Reinterpreting salience. Journal of Vision, 11(5):5, 1–23, http://www.journalofvision.org/content/11/5/5, doi:10.1167/11.5.5.

This article is an invited review for the 10th anniversary edition of the Journal of Vision. In it we review current models and understanding of scene viewing and consider the limitations of using these models to understand eye guidance in the context of natural behavioural settings. We highlight the principles of selection that any model of natural eye guidance needs to be able to explain and discuss the emerging theoretical framework for gaze allocation on the basis of reward maximization and uncertainty reduction.

Postdoc position available

Applications are invited for an ESRC-funded postdoc position in the AVL. The project is entitled “The timecourse of utilising high-level information in scene perception.”

The aim of the research is to understand how we use different sources of information in a scene to guide where we look. In particular we are interested in whether scene context and target template information are utilised simultaneously or sequentially, when we first encounter a scene. We will consider the functional goal of the visual system when utilising target template and scene context information in order to gain insights into the situations in which each of these sources of information is utilised. These findings will allow insights into the moment-to-moment decision making processes as we search natural images for a target object. 

The successful applicant will be responsible for eye movement data collection, analysis and dissemination of outcomes through publications and conference presentations. 

The post is available from 15th July 2011 for a fixed-term period of 11 months (earlier start dates can be arranged if necessary).

Closing date: 11th May 2011.

For more information visit the job advert or contact Ben Tatler.