I am interested in understanding how we see things: how do our eyes and brain work together to give us the vision of the world around us?Most of us do this effortlessly almost from birth and yet no machine can see as we do. The elegant and not yet well understood workings of our visual system hide very complicated computational problems that I investigate in my lab. I make use of my background in physics to help me understand how light interacts with objects and with our eyes. I measure peoples responses using non-invasive techniques such as eye-tracking (recording were people are looking) or reaction times (how quickly you see something) to establish the limits of what our vision can or cannot do during certain visual activities such as looking for a camouflaged target, trying to remember a colour they have seen before or even watching a movie.Using the data I collect I develop models of how the eye and brain might be working together, using these models I can then make predictions about how people might perform during different activities. I can then test these predictions by collecting more data and then use these new findings to refine my models. I am also interested in how our abilities develop over time, can we train them? What happens when we get older? Much of the problems I investigate in my lab have direct correlation with everyday tasks we all do. I have secured uninterrupted external funding to support my research activities; most of this has been Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) support secured through strong interdisciplinary and cross-institution collaborations often as lead applicant. Summary of past projects can be found via this EPSRC link or via RCUK Gateway to Research site.Currently I am working with Prof Julie Harris from University of St Andrews and Prof Alex Wade from University of York on a BBSRC funded project exploring the neural processing pathways that underlie the perception of binocular motion in depth, see here for more information and doing some exciting work on how we remember the colour of real objects with Prof Karl Gegenfurtner and his team at the University of Giessen in Germany. I have secured uninterrupted external funding to support my research activities; most of this has been Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) support secured through strong interdisciplinary and cross-institution collaborations often as lead applicant. Summary of past projects can be found via this EPSRC link or via RCUK Gateway to Research site.fund
