Vision and Cognition
Colleagues in the Vision and Cognition research group explore fundamental issues of importance in vision and cognition.
Our particular interests span colour perception, face perception and visual search through to aesthetics, spatial navigation and motor control. In doing so, we have a wide range of technical expertise that includes the running of behavioural studies to measuring brain function and biochemical influences on brain function, visual perception and cognition.
The group provides a supportive environment for colleagues and postgraduate students.
The latest project in our group was run by Drs. Letizia Palumbo and Neil Harrison, and Prof. Nick Donnelly in collaboration with Tate Liverpool. The project looked at empowering people to engage with art using portable eyetracking glasses. For more information of what the project was about, please visit: https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-
The project was a joint collaboration between staff members of Liverpool Hope University, including Prof Nicholas Donnelly (Head of the Psychology Department), and Dr Tobiasz Trawinski (Postdoctoral researcher at New York University in Abu Dhabi), Dr Jason Kass (Associate Dean of Fashion and Assistant Professor of Fashion Communication at Parsons School of Design, NYC, USA) and UG student and photographer Mr Alberto Gonzalez (University of Chester, UK).
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Nick explores issues in face perception and visual attention. In addition, he explores a number of issues with an applied focus but doing so from a theoretically driven perspective. These issues range from the search for threats in x-ray baggage and real world scenes through to the spectatorship of pictorial art.
Dan's research interests are primarily in the field of human cognition, with a particular focus on human memory and more specifically memory for object location. He is interested in the impact of survival processing and animacy in human memory, the Temporal Contiguity effect and the impact of handheld Sat Nav devices on spatial memory.
Neil’s research focuses on perception and action: eye-tracking and EEG investigations of prosthetic limb control; and the effects of anticipations on motor planning and emotional responses. Another line of research examines distortions in drawings of common objects (e.g. faces), and the influences of personality and situational factors on aesthetic experiences and judgements.
Letizia’s research in vision and cognition concerns two areas of investigation: (1) visual preference and aesthetics, with a focus on the interplay between visual and emotional processes in preference formation; (2) Emotion anticipation and low level “mindreading”. Current research issues include atypical social perception in autism and the role of embodied mechanisms in perceptual distortions of emotional facial expressions.
Galina’s research field is in visual perception; in particular, she specialises in colour vision psychophysics and colour cognition; another, non-mainstream, line of her research is perception of facial expressions of emotions and, more recently, the role of art expertise in appraisal of artworks.
Glen's research interests in cognitive psychology lie in working memory and academic attainment, particularly mathematical development in young children. As lab manager she is involved in projects with several academic staff members.
Idalmis’ research interests are in social neuroscience. Her work asks questions such as, to what extent do self and other representations overlap or should they be distinguished during social interactions? What role do individual differences play when self-other processes go awry? By combining behavioural and cognitive neuroscience methods, her goal is to gain a deeper understanding of key processes underlying social interactions both in typical and atypical populations (e.g. autism and mirror sensory synaesthesia). Current research includes a developmental approach to the study of self-other processes across the lifespan and the presence of mirror sensory experiences in individuals with autism.
Yue's recent research interest is to understand how we form mental representations to guide attention during search tasks (e.g., operational monitoring in air traffic control, medical image reading, security screening). She is currently working on developing training programmes to improve the dual-target search.
Exploring Survival Processing and Animacy in Human Memory, Investigating the Temporal Contiguity effect. (In collaboration with Dr Davide Bruno, School of Natural Sciences and Psychology, Liverpool John Moores University, UK.)
Exploring the Impact of Sat Nav Devices on Spatial Memory. (In collaboration with Dr Thomas Smyth, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Huddersfield, UK and Associate Professor Janet Speake, Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences, Liverpool Hope University, UK.)
Binding across features and their influence on cognitive processes such as reading and writing. (In collaboration with Dr Lorna Bourke, Liverpool Hope University, and Dr Neil Harrison, Liverpool Hope University.)
The next stage of this is looking at spatial-temporal binding of audio-visual features and their development across early life.
General influence of working memory and executive processing on cognitive development. (In collaboration with Dr Lorna Bourke, Liverpool Hope University.)
Understanding acrophobia (fear of heights) by testing evolutionary accounts of the visual cues necessary to induce a fear of height.
Person perception; Explaining the common assignment of personality and affect to body shape in the absence of any other information.
Perceptual distortions in general. This has included the distortion of placing the eyes on a drawn face (with Neil Harrison). A pilot study looking at the horizontal-vertical illusion and motion has revealed an effect of time distortion for horizontal motion when a moving dot is viewed against a backdrop of the HV illusion, but is absent when the HV illusion is not present.
Explaining inattention blindness at fixation. This is an ongoing series of experiments trying to decide on whether an object-based or space-based account offers the better explanation for this phenomenon.
He collaborates extensively with colleagues in the UK and the US. His current work includes projects funded by the Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) called ‘We’re in this together: Using evidence-based visual perception to enhance crowd resilience’ and the Department for Transport called ‘X-ray Baggage Screening Time on Task’.
Visual attention and EEG measures of prosthetic hand control: optimisation through gaze training (in collaboration with Dr Greg Wood, Manchester Metropolitan University, and Dr Johnny Parr.)
Neural correlates of verbal-conscious and verbal non-conscious motor control (in collaboration with Dr Greg Wood, Manchester Metropolitan University, and Dr Johnny Parr.)
Readiness potentials, response times, and the automatic processing of affordances (in collaboration with Stefano Uccelli, University of Parma, Professor Nicola Bruno, University of Parma, and Dr Letizia Palumbo.)
Liking and approach avoidance for abstract curvature using EEG (in collaboration with Dr Letizia Palumbo.)
Context congruency effects in aesthetic evaluations of art works (in collaboration with Dr Letizia Palumbo.)
Aesthetic perception of art and its relationship to connection with nature
Visual preference for symmetry and curvature in typical developed adults and autism (in collaboration with Dr Giulia Rampone and Dr Marco Bertamini, University of Liverpool.)
Objects preference in autism (in collaboration with Prof Enric Munar, University of Balearic Islands, Spain.)
Liking and approach avoidance for abstract curvature using EEG (in collaboration with Dr Neil Harrison.)
Context congruency effects in aesthetic evaluations of art works (in collaboration with Dr Neil Harrison.)
Perception of biological motion and its role on aesthetic evaluations of dance (in collaboration with Dr Neil Harrison.)
Intergenerational effects of object semantics on colour preference (in collaboration with Prof Galina Paramei.)
Embodied mechanisms in emotional anticipation using EMG and TMS (in collaboration with Dr Tjeerd Jellema, University of Hull and Dr Valentina Cazzato, Liverpool John Moores University.)
Readiness potentials, response times, and the automatic processing of affordances (visiting PhD student Stefano Uccelli, from University of Parma, Italy. PhD supervisor: Prof Nicola Bruno. Project co-supervision in collaboration with Dr Neil Harrison).
The effect of colour on emotions read out from emoticons (In collaboration with Prof. Katsuaki Sakata: Department of Fine Arts, Joshibi University of Art and Design, Tokyo, Japan.)
Diatopic variation of the „Italian blues“: Estimating basicness. Modelling colour category volumes and boundaries (In collaboration with Prof. Gloria Menegaz: Department of Computer Science, University of Verona, Italy; Prof. Maria M. Del Viva: Department of Neuroscience & Psychology, University of Florence, Italy; Prof. Natalia L. Komarova: Department of Mathematics, University of California Irvine, USA.)
The effect of inversion of facial expressions of emotions (In collaboration with Dr. David L. Bimler: School of Psychology, Massey University, New Zealand.)
Assessing repeatability of the Cambridge Colour Test (In collaboration with Thiago M. P. Fernandes, PhD student: Department of Psychology, University of Paraíba, João Pessoa, Brazil.)
Dual task search (In collaboration with Prof. Nick Donnelly and Prof. Kyle Cave, University of Massachusetts.)
Visual Properties Driving Visual Preference (VPDVP) conference
Liverpool Hope, June 13-14th 2019
Sponsored by the International Association of Empirical Aesthetics (IAEA)
https://science-of-aesthetics.org
The 5th edition of the Visual Properties Driving Visual Preference (VPDVP) workshop took place at Liverpool Hope University (Hope Park Campus) on 13-14 June 2019.
Keynote speakers:
Johan Wagemans (University of Leuven, Belgium)
“Aesthetics in the wild: What we can learn from multi-method museum studies”
Chris McManus (UCL, UK)
“People differ ...?”
Edward Vessel (Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Germany)
“Embracing an interactionist view of aesthetic preference”
Since 2015, VPDVP has provided the forum to explore preference for a variety of visual properties, including symmetry, fractals, natural statistics and smooth curvature. More information on previous editions can be found here: www.bertamini.org/lab/vpdvp.html
Whilst keeping the same format (i.e. presentations and round table discussion), this year we explored empirical aesthetics and visual preference in relation to individual differences, mental health and wellbeing. We value the use of multidisciplinary approaches to address these questions; therefore, professionals and collaborators working in visual arts, architecture and design were encouraged to attend the workshop.
Organisers:
Dr Marco Bertamini, Dr Letizia Palumbo (Chair)
Scientific Committee:
Dr Marco Bertamini, Prof Nicholas Donnelly, Dr Neil Harrison, Dr Alexis Makin, Dr Letizia Palumbo, Prof Galina Paramei, Dr Giulia Rampone, Mr Tobiasz Trawinski.
Conference Programme:
Click here to download the VPDVP 2019 Programme