Perception and attention

Overview

Overview

Blood Vessles from Optic Disc [wellcome images]

The Perception and Attention group has research interests in how we can see and hear and how these abilities can be modulated by attention.  The group also undertakes research with a more applied focus that involves understanding loss of vision and hearing and how such deficits can be ameliorated.   Many of the researchers in Perception and Attention use both behavioural and neuroimaging research methods to elucidate relationships between brain activity and perceptual phenomena and abilities.

Grant funders of research in perception and attention include BBSRC, EPSRC, ESRC, MRC, the Wellcome Trust, Deafness Research UK, RNID, Advanced Bionics, Microsoft, and the MCC.

To give a flavour of the research undertaken by our group take a look at the following publications. Greater detail of the members’ research is given on their profile page accessible from the People tab.

  1. Andrews TJ, Davies-Thompson J, Kingstone A, Young AW. (2010) Internal and external features of the face are represented holistically in face-selective regions of visual cortex. J Neurosci. 30, 3544-52.
  2. Hagan CC, Woods W, Johnson S, Calder AJ, Green GG, Young AW (2009) MEG demonstrates a supra-additive response to facial and vocal emotion in the right superior temporal sulcus. PNAS 106, 20010-5.
  3. Kumar S, Forster H, Bailey P J and Griffiths T D (2008) Mapping unpleasantness of sounds to their auditory representation. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 124, 3810-3817
  4. Lovett RES, Kitterick PT, Hewitt CE, Summerfield AQ (2010). Bilateral or unilateral cochlear implantation for deaf children: an observational study. Archives of Disease in Childhood 95, 107-112.
  5. McKeefry DJ, Burton MP, Vakrou C, Barrett BT, Morland AB. (2008) Induced deficits in speed perception by transcranial magnetic stimulation of human cortical areas V5/MT+ and V3A. J Neurosci. 28, 6848-57
  6. Millman RE, Prendergast G, Kitterick PT, Woods WP, Green GG. (2010) Spatiotemporal reconstruction of the auditory steady-state response to frequency modulation using magnetoencephalography. Neuroimage 49, 745-58.
  7. Quinlan P, Maas H, Jansen B, Booij O, & Rendell M. (2007). Re-thinking stages of cognitive development: An appraisal of connectionist models of the balance scale task, Cognition 103, 413-459
  8. Thompson P and Burr D (2009) Visual aftereffects. Current Biology 13, R11-4.

People

People

Academic staff

Post-docs

  • Heidi Baseler
  • Mark Hymers
  • Michael Simpson
  • Sam Johnson
  • Padraig Kitterick (RNID)
  • Rebecca Millman
  • Garreth Prendergast

Research Students

  • Nicholas Arthur
  • Jodie Davies-Thompson
  • Joanne Eaves
  • Andre Gouws (MRC)
  • Rosemary Lovett (Deafness Research UK)
  • Sam Mathias (BBSRC)
  • Kyriaki Mikellidou (A.G. Leventis Foundation)
  • Edward Silson

Projects

Projects

The Perception and Attention group has a diverse portfolio of research projects that are described here. Each member of the group is happy to receive enquiries from potential research students.

Attention

Although psychologists and philosophers alike continue to grapple with what attention is, it is perhaps best to think in the following way. On a moment-to-moment basis the environment presents considerably more information to the senses than any person can effectively deal with. Think about it, is really sensible to try and hold a mobile phone conversation whilst attempting to negotiate the M62 in the rain during the rush hour? It is therefore accepted that there is a constant need to focus on the relevant information and discard irrelevant information. The ability to do this demands selective attention. In York, attention is being studying a variety of different ways by Quinlan, Bailey and Summerfield. This ongoing programme of research involves studying multi-tasking, switching between different tasks, visual selective attention, auditory selective attention, and co-ordinating information across the visual and auditory modalities. More recently, the role of attention in threat detection has been examined. This work has particular relevance to the kinds of security screening that takes place in airports.

Vision

Research into visual perception spans basic research questions into the processing of faces (Andrews and Young), visual motion (Morland and Thompson) and visual illusions (Thompson) to more neuropsychological and clinical questions concerning loss of visual capacities (Morland and Young).

  • Face processing
    Currently the research into face processing uses both neuroimaging and behavioural approaches to understand the mechanisms responsible for different aspects of processing human faces. Tim Andrews has published a series of fMRI papers on how different aspects of the face are processed by a network of face selective regions of the brain. Andy Young has also used neuroimaging at York, but in this case MEG, to elucidate emotional aspects of faces a study that builds on the his corpus of work on facial recognition, identity and expression. Together Andrews and Young are now embarking on new investigations of face processing funded by a Project Grant awarded by the Wellcome Trust.
  • Visual motion and illusions
    The way in which the visual system processes motion has been a long standing interest of Peter Thompson, who discovered how changes in image contrast can distort our perception of speed. More recent work on this topic with Stephen Hammett (Royal Holloway) and Tony Morland has revealed that distortions in motion perception are more difficult to explain on the basis of a Bayesian account of perception than had originally been thought. Tony Morland has worked together with Declan McKeefry (University of Bradford) on the brain areas involved in speed perception. In a series of papers that bring together fMRI and TMS, they have found a prominent role for visual area V3A in speed perception. Peter Thompson has also been investigating visual illusions that cause distortions in the perception of width and height. His investigations have received significant media attention and he has appeared on many television and radio broadcasts describing his findings.
  • Patient based studies of vision
    Andy Young has evaluated patients with brain lesions to gain insight to the processing of faces. He has also investigated patients with hemi-spatial neglect. Tony Morland has undertaken work on patients with visual disturbances resulting from brain damage. He has a long standing interest in 'Blindsight' and has also published work on cerebral achromatopsia (cortical colour blindness). More recently he has turned his attention towards investigations of visual loss that occur as a result of disease of the retina. In these cases he is interested in how the brain may be able to compensate for visual loss that occurs in the eye. This work builds on previous published fMRI work on the organization of visual maps in the brain in patients with albinism, a feature that results in the pathways between the eye and brain being misrouted.

Hearing

Projects on hearing address basic research issues from the processing of low level acoustical features up to the processing of the complexities of speech (Bailey, Green and Summerfield). In addition, more applied issues of hearing, in particular hearing loss in young and old age are addressed (Bailley and Summerfield)

  • Auditory processing
    Bailey studies the roles of spatial attention, spectral profile discrimination and perceptual organisation in auditory and speech processing. Gary Green has published on how the auditory system processes a wide range of auditory patterns and has more recently began to evaluate how the brain encodes complex changes in loudness and frequency. Summerfield studies spatial hearing.
  • Auditory perception and hearing healthcare research group
    Consists of Summerfield, Bailey, and their students and associates, was formed in 2005 with the aims of applying fundamental understanding of auditory perception to applied problems of impaired hearing in young and old age. The group is using magneto-encephalography to study the normal process of spatial hearing, its development in childhood, and its breakdown in pathology and old age. The group is also coordinating a randomised controlled trial comparing unilateral and bilateral cochlear implantation in young deaf children. Some of our specific projects are described below.
    • Bilateral vs. unilateral cochlear implantation for deaf children: spatial listening and quality of life
      This project is funded by Deafness Research UK and is Rosie Lovett’s PhD research. The results of comparing unilaterally- and bilaterally-implanted children in terms of spatial listening and quality of life are reported in Lovett et al. (2010) and Summerfield et al. (in press).
    • Development and evaluation of the AB-York Crescent of Sound
      This project is funded by Advanced Bionics. The aim is to translate tests of spatial listening from the laboratory to the clinic so that they can be used by clinicians and researchers in the National Health Service. The tests are described in Lovett et al. (2010) and can be viewed on the Group's web-site. The new apparatus that supports the clinical implementations of the tests is described in Kitterick et al. (in press).
    • Distinguishing peripheral and central origins of children’s difficulties in perceiving speech in the presence of competing talkers
      This projected is funded by the Goodricke Appeal Fund and is Joanne Eaves’ PhD research. The aim is to test the hypothesis that some children have difficulty understanding speech when many people are speaking because they do not encode the temporal fine structure of sound accurately, while others have difficulty because they cannot control attention precisely.

Neuroimaging methods

Gary Green, Director of the York Neuroimaging Centre (YNiC), heads a group of investigators, who develop neuroimaging data analysis methods particularly for MEG and data visualization. He also collaborates with members of the Department of Chemistry to research methods of increasing magnetic resonance signals. This work has made a significant recent impact with a paper in Science reporting a method of quickly and cheaply producing magnetically hyperpolarized molecules that could one day bring about revolutionary changes in the way in which human medical imaging could be undertaken. Taken together these methodological projects provide neuroimagers at York with state of the art analysis procedures and the potential to use novel imaging methods as they become available.

Publications

Publications

Andrews

2010

  • Andrews TJ, Davies-Thompson J, Kingstone A, Young AW (2010) Internal and external features of the face are represented holistically in face-selective regions of visual cortex. Journal of Neuroscience 30: 3544-3552
  • Lee LC, Andrews TJ, Johnson SJ, Woods W, Gouws A, Green GGR, Young AW. (2010) Neural responses to rigidly moving faces displaying shifts in social attention investigated with fMRI and MEG. Neuropsychologia 48: 477-490.
  • Andrews TJ, Clarke A, Pell P & Hartley T (2010) Selectivity for low-level features of objects in the human ventral stream. Neuroimage 49: 703-711

2009

  • Horner AJ & Andrews TJ (2009) Linearity of the BOLD response in category-selective regions of human visual cortex. Human Brain Mapping. 30: 2628-2640.
  • Davies-Thompson J, Gouws A & Andrews TJ (2009) An image-dependent representation of familiar and unfamiliar faces in the human ventral stream. Neuropsychologia 47: 1627-1635

2008

  • Ewbank MP & Andrews TJ (2008) Differential sensitivity for viewpoint between familiar and unfamiliar faces in human visual cortex Neuroimage. 40: 1857-1870.
  • Hancock S, Whitney D & Andrews TJ (2008) The initial interactions in binocular rivalry require visual awareness. Journal of Vision 8:3, 1-9
  • Ewbank MP, Smith WAP, Hancock ER & Andrews TJ (2008) The M170 reflects a viewpoint-dependent representation for both familiar and unfamiliar faces. Cerebral Cortex 18:364-370.

Bailey

2010

  • Kitterick PT, Bailey PJ, Summerfield AQ. (2010) Benefits of knowing who, where, and when in multi-talker listening. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 127: 2498-508.
  • Lipp R, Kitterick P, Summerfield Q, Bailey PJ, Paul-Jordanov I. (2010) Concurrent sound segregation based on inharmonicity and onset asynchrony. Neuropsychologia. 48: 1417-25.

2008

  • Kumar, S., Forster, H., Bailey, P. J. and Griffiths, T. D. (2008) Mapping Unpleasantness of sounds to their auditory representation. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 124: 3810-3817.

Green

2010

  • Harrison, L. and Green G.G.R. (2010) A Bayesian spatio-temporal model for very large data-sets. Accepted for publication in Neuroimage.
  • MacPherson, H., Asghar, A.U., Green, G.G.R., Lythgoe, M.F. and Lewith, G. (2010) Acupuncture needling sensation: the neural correlates of deqi using fMRI. Accepted for publication in Brain Research

2009

  • Hagan, C.C., Woods, W., Johnson, S., Calder, A.J., Green, G.G.R. and Young, A.W. (2009) MEG demonstrates a supra-additive response to facial and vocal emotion in right superior temporal sulcus. Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences 106 pp20010-20015
  • Adams RW, Duckett SB, Green RA, Williamson DC, Green GGR. (2009) A theoretical basis for spontaneous polarisation transfer in non-hydrogenative parahydrogen-induced polarisation. Journal of Chemical Physics 131 pp194505
  • Lee LC, Andrews TJ, Johnson SJ, Woods W, Gouws A, Green GGR, Young AW. (2009). Neural responses to rigidly moving faces displaying shifts in social attention investigated with fMRI and MEG. Neuropsychologia 48(2) pp 477-490
  • Hymers M, Prendergast G, Johnson SR, Green GG. (2009) Source Stability Index: A novel beamforming based localisation metric. Neuroimage 49 pp1385-1397
  • Millman, R. E., Prendergast, G., Kitterick, P. T., Woods, W. P. and Green, G. G. R. (2009) Spatiotemporal reconstruction of the auditory steady-state response to frequency modulation using magnetoencephalography. Neuroimage 49 pp 745-758
  • Kevin Atkinson, Michael Cowley, Paul Elliott, Simon Duckett, Gary Green, Joaquín López-Serrano, Adrian Whitwood. (2009) Spontaneous transfer of parahydrogen derived spin order to pyridine at low magnetic field. Journal of the American Chemical Society vol 131(37) pp13362-8
  • Michael I.G. Simpson, Gareth R. Barnes, Sam R. Johnson, Arjan Hillebrand, Krish D. Singh, Gary G. R. Green. (2009) MEG Evidence that the Central Auditory System Simultaneously Encodes Multiple Temporal Cues. European Journal of Neuroscience 30(6) pp1183-91
  • Ralph W. Adams, Juan A. Aguilar, Kevin D. Atkinson, Michael J. Cowley, Simon B. Duckett, Gary G. R. Green, Iman G. Khazal, Joaquín López-Serrano, David C. Williamson. (2009) Reversible Interactions with para-Hydrogen Enhance NMR Sensitivity by Polarization Transfer. Science vol 323 pp 1708-1711

    Andre D. Gouws, Will Woods, Rebecca E. Millman, Antony B. Morland, Gary G R Green. (2009) Dataviewer3D : An open source, cross-platform multi-modal neuroimaging data visualization tool. Frontiers in Neuroinformatics. http://frontiersin.org/neuroinformatics/paper/10.3389/neuro.11/009.2009/

    Kevin D. Atkinson, Michael J. Cowley, Simon B. Duckett, Paul I. P. Elliott, Gary G. R. Green, Joaquín López-Serrano, Iman G. Khazal and Adrian C. Whitwood. (2009) Parahydrogen induced polarisation without incorporation of parahydrogen into the analyte. Inorganic Chemistry  vol 48 pp 663-670

    Avgis Hadjipapas, Erik Casagrande, Angel Nevado, Gareth R. Barnes, Gary Green , Ian E. Holliday. (2009) Can we observe collective neuronal activity from macroscopic aggregate signals? NeuroImage vol 44 pp 1290-1303

Morland

2010

  • McKeefry, D. J., Burton, M. P., & Morland, A. B. (2010). The contribution of human cortical area V3A to the perception of chromatic motion: a transcranial magnetic stimulation study. Eur J Neurosci, 31(3), 575-584.

2009

  • Baseler, H. A., Gouws, A., & Morland, A. B. (2009). The Organization of the Visual Cortex in Patients with Scotomata Resulting from Lesions of the Central Retina. Neuroophthalmology, 33(5), 140-157.
  • Burton, M. P., McKeefry, D. J., Barrett, B. T., Vakrou, C., & Morland, A. B. (2009). Disruptions to human speed perception induced by motion adaptation and transcranial magnetic stimulation. Eur J Neurosci, 30(10), 1989-1998.
  • Gouws, A., Woods, W., Millman, R., Morland, A., & Green, G. (2009). DataViewer3D: An Open-Source, Cross-Platform Multi-Modal Neuroimaging Data Visualization Tool. Front Neuroinformatics, 3, 9.
  • McKeefry, D. J., Gouws, A., Burton, M. P., & Morland, A. B. (2009). The noninvasive dissection of the human visual cortex: using FMRI and TMS to study the organization of the visual brain. Neuroscientist, 15(5), 489-506.

2008

  • Crossland, M. D., Morland, A. B., Feely, M. P., von dem Hagen, E., & Rubin, G. S. (2008). The effect of age and fixation instability on retinotopic mapping of primary visual cortex. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci, 49(8), 3734-3739.
  • McKeefry, D. J., Burton, M. P., Vakrou, C., Barrett, B. T., & Morland, A. B. (2008). Induced deficits in speed perception by transcranial magnetic stimulation of human cortical areas V5/MT+ and V3A. J Neurosci, 28(27), 6848-6857.
  • Neveu, M. M., von dem Hagen, E., Morland, A. B., & Jeffery, G. (2008). The fovea regulates symmetrical development of the visual cortex. J Comp Neurol, 506(5), 791-800.
  • von dem Hagen, E. A., Hoffmann, M. B., & Morland, A. B. (2008). Identifying human albinism: a comparison of VEP and fMRI. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci, 49(1), 238-249.

Quinlan

2010

  • Dyson, B. J., & Quinlan, P. T. (in press). Decomposing the Garner paradigm: Evidence for dissociations between macro-level and micro-level performance. Attention, Perception & Psychophysics.
  • Andreadis, N., & Quinlan, P. T. (in press). Task switching under predictable and unpredictable circumstances. Attention, Perception & Psychophysics.
  • Stainthorp, R., Stuart, M., Powell, D., Quinlan, P. T., & Garwood, H. (2010). Visual processing deficits in children with slow RAN performance. Scientific Studies of Reading, 14, 266-292.

2008

  • Gaskell, M. G., Quinlan, P. T., Tamminen, J., & Cleland, A. A. (2008). The nature of phoneme representation in spoken word recognition. J Exp Psychol Gen, 137(2), 282-302

Summerfield

2010

  • Summerfield AQ, Lovett RES, Bellenger H, Batten G. (in press). Estimates of the cost-effectiveness of pediatric bilateral cochlear implantation. Ear and Hearing.
  • Kitterick, P. T., Bailey, P. J., & Summerfield, A. Q. (2010). Benefits of knowing who, where, and when in multi-talker listening. J Acoust Soc Am, 127(4), 2498-2508.
  • Lovett, R. E., Kitterick, P. T., Hewitt, C. E., & Summerfield, A. Q. (2010). Bilateral or unilateral cochlear implantation for deaf children: an observational study. Arch Dis Child, 95(2), 107-112.
  • Stacey, P. C., Raine, C. H., O'Donoghue, G. M., Tapper, L., Twomey, T., & Summerfield, A. Q. (2010). Effectiveness of computer-based auditory training for adult users of cochlear implants. Int J Audiol, 49(5), 347-356.

2009

  • Roberts, K. L., Summerfield, A. Q., & Hall, D. A. (2009). Covert auditory spatial orienting: an evaluation of the spatial relevance hypothesis. J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform, 35(4), 1178-1191.

2008

  • Stacey, P. C., & Summerfield, A. Q. (2008). Comparison of word-, sentence-, and phoneme-based training strategies in improving the perception of spectrally distorted speech. J Speech Lang Hear Res, 51(2), 526-538.

Thompson

2009

  • Thompson P and Burr D (2009) Visual after effects. Current Biology 13, R11-4.

Young

2010

  • Andrews, T.J., Davies-Thompson, J., Kingstone, A. and Young, A.W. (2010). Internal and external features of the face are represented holistically in face-selective regions of visual cortex. Journal of Neuroscience, 30, 3544-3552.
  • Lee LC, Andrews TJ, Johnson SJ, Woods W, Gouws A, Green GGR, Young AW. (2010) Neural responses to rigidly moving faces displaying shifts in social attention investigated with fMRI and MEG. Neuropsychologia 48: 477-490.

2009

  • Hagan, C.C., Woods, W., Johnson, S., Calder, A.J., Green, G.G.R. and Young, A.W. (2009). MEG demonstrates a supra-additive response to facial and vocal emotion in right superior temporal sulcus. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 106, 20010-20015.
  • Sprengelmeyer, R., Perrett, D.I., Cornwell, R.E., Lobmaier, J., Sprengelmeyer, A., Aasheim, H., Black, I., Cameron, L., Craw, S., Milne, N., Rhodes, E. and Young, A.W. (2009). The cutest little baby face: a hormonal link to sensitivity for cuteness in infant faces. Psychological Science, 20, 149-154

2008

  • Longmore, C.A., Liu, C.H. and Young, A.W. (2008). Learning faces from photographs. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 34, 77-100.
  • Asghar, A.U.R., Chiu, Y-C., Hallam, G., Liu, S., Mole, H., Wright, H. and Young, A.W. (2008). An amygdala response to fearful faces with covered eyes. Neuropsychologia, 46, 2364-2370.

Grants

Grants

Grant funders of research in perception and attention include:

  • BBSRC
  • EPSRC
  • ESRC
  • MRC
  • Wellcome Trust
  • Deafness Research UK
  • Microsoft
  • MCC

Auditory Perception and Hearing Healthcare Research Group

  • Advanced Bionics SARL
    Development and validation of the 'AB-York Crescent of Sound' for measuring skills in spatial hearing in children and adults who use cochlear implants, 2 years (2008-2010). Investigators: Quentin Summerfield, Padraig Kitterick, Rosie Lovett.
  • Goodricke Appeal Fund
    Distinguishing peripheral and central origins of children's difficulties in perceiving speech in the presence of competing talkers, 3 years (2009-2012). Investigator: Quentin Summerfield. Student: Joanne Eaves.
  • Royal National Institute for Deaf People
    A longitudinal comparison of outcomes for hearing-impaired children with either bilateral hearing aids or bilateral cochlear implants, 3 years (2010-2013). Investigators: Rosie Lovett (University College London), Deborah Vickers (University College London), Quentin Summerfield.