Congratulations! Viva success for Chris Rowson
Posted on 31 May 2011
His research was on how we combine "meanings" of objects in scenes. For example, if you hear that "John plunged the knife into the tyre", you will infer that the air escaped and the tyre ended up flat. Chris studied what happens when we see a tyre and a knife, without any accompanying language; our knowledge of knives includes how they're used and what they do, and our knowledge of tyres tells us they're full of air and can be burst. So do we combine these two kinds of knowledge and infer that if the knife were used on the tyre it would end up flat? Chris showed that we do indeed combine the knowledge this way. He did this by using a novel experimental paradigm that should prove useful for other researchers interested in the activation of meaning from visual scenes.