Visual Cognition

External Links: The Visual Cognitive Neuroscience Group

Faculty

Dr Jason J S Barton , Professor
Dr Debbie Giaschi, Professor 
Dr Ipek Oruç, Associate Professor 
Dr Miriam Spering, Assistant Professor

Overview

The Visual Cognitive Neuroscience Group is situated in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences with links to the Division of Neurology and the Department of Psychology. Our goals are to advance our understanding of human visual processing and ocular motor control, with a particular focus on the role of the brain in these processes, and to determine how these functions are altered in various disorders of the brain. We share a common research approach in that we study human subjects with a range of behavioural, computational and neuroimaging techniques.

Publications

Dr. J. Barton’s Lab

Abegg M, Manoach DS, Barton JJS. Knowing the future: partial foreknowledge effects on the programming of prosaccades and antisaccades. Vision Res 2011; 51: 215-21.

Abegg M, Sharma N, Barton JJS. Antisaccades generate two types of saccadic inhibition. Biol Psychol 2012; 89: 191-4.

Dalrymple KA, Birmingham E, Bischof W, Barton JJS, Kingstone A. Experiencing simultanagnosia through windowed viewing of complex social scenes. Brain Res 2011; 1367: 265-77.

Dalrymple KA, Birmingham E, Bischof W, Barton JJS, Kingstone A. Opening a window on attention: Documenting and simulating recovery from simultanagnosia. Cortex 2011; 47: 787-99.

Dalrymple KA, Oruç I, Duchaine B, Fox CJ, Iaria G, Handy TC, Barton JJS. The neuroanatomic basis of the face-selective N170 in acquired prosopagnosia: a combined ERP/fMRI study. Neuropsychologia 2011; 49: 2553-63.

Dyckman KA, Lee AKC, Agam Y, Isom M, Friedman J, Goff DC, Barton JJS, Manoach DS. Abnormally persistent fMRI activation during antisaccades in schizophrenia: a neural correlate of perseveration? Schizophrenia Res 2011; 132: 62-8.

Fox CJ, Hanif HM, Iaria G, Duchaine BC, Barton JJS. Perceptual and anatomic patterns of selective deficits in facial identity and expression processing. Neuropsychologia 2011; 49: 3188-200.

Lai M, Oruç I, Barton JJS. Facial age aftereffects show partial identity invariance and transfer from hands to faces. Cortex 2012: 48: 477-86.

Lee AKC, Hämäläinen MS, Dyckman KA, Barton JJ, Manoach DS. Saccadic preparation in frontal eye field is modulated by distinct trial history effects as revealed by magnetoencephalography. Cerebral Cortex 2011; 21: 245-53.

Lim TS, Lee HY, Barton JJS, Moon SY. Deficits in face perception in the amnestic form of mild cognitive impairment. J Neurol Sci 2011; 309: 123–127.

Liu I, Levy RM, Barton JJS, Iaria G. Age and gender differences in various topographic strategies. Brain Res 2011; 1410: 112-9.

Ogun O, Viswanathan J, Barton JJS. The effect of central (macula) sparing on contralateral line bisection bias: a study with virtual hemianopia. Neuropsychologia 2011; 49: 3377-82.

Oruç I, Barton JJS. Adaptation improves face identity discrimination. Proc Roy Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2011; 278: 2591–2597.

Oruç I, Guo XM, Barton JJS. Gender in facial representations: a contrast-based study of adaptation within and between the sexes. PLoSONE 2011; 6: e16251.

Oruç I, Krigolson O, Dalrymple K, Nagamatsu LS, Handy TC, Barton JJS. Bootstrap analysis of the single subject with event related potentials. Cogn Neuropsychol 2011; 28: 322-37.

Pfeffer G, Abegg M, Vertinsky AT, Ceccherini I, Caroli F, Barton JJS. The ocular motor features of adult-onset Alexander disease: a case and review of the literature. J Neuroophthalmol 2011; 31: 155-9.

Pichler P, Dosani M, Oruç I, Barton JJS. The nature of upright and inverted face representations: an adaptation-transfer study of configuration. Cortex 2012; 48: 725-36.

Ross M, Lanyon LJ, Viswanathan J, Manoach DS, Barton JJS. Human prosaccades and antisaccades under risk: effects of penalties and rewards on visual selection and action value. Neuroscience 2011; 196: 168-77.

Sharp M, Viswanathan J, Lanyon LJ, Barton JJS. Sensitivity and bias in decision-making under risk: evaluating the perception of reward, its probability and value. PLoSONE 2012; 7: e33460: 1-9.

Sheldon C, Abegg M, Sekunova A, Barton JJS. The word-length effect in acquired alexia, real and virtual hemianopia. Neuropsychologia 2012; 50: 841-51.

Simpson S, Abegg M, Barton JJS. Rapid adaptation of visual search in simulated hemianopia. Cerebral Cortex 2011; 21: 1593-601.

Van der Stigchel S, Nijboer TCW, Bergsma DP, Barton JJS, Paffen CLE. Measuring palinopsia: characteristics of a persevering visual sensation from cerebral pathology. J Neurol Sci 2012; 316: 184-8.

Dr. D. Giaschi’s Lab

Boden C, Giaschi D (2007) M-stream deficits and reading-related visual processes in developmental dyslexia. Psychological Bulletin 133:346-66

Giaschi D, Zwicker A, Au Young S, Bjornson B (2007) The role of cortical area V5/MT+ in speed-tuned directional anisotropies in global motion perception. Vision Research 47:887-98

Hayward J, Truong G, Partanen M, Giaschi D. (2011) Effects of speed, age and amblyopia on the perception of motion-defined form. Vision Research 51:2216-23

Ho C, Giaschi D (2009) Low- and high-level motion perception deficits in anisometropic and strabismic amblyopia: evidence from fMRI. Vision Research 49: 2891-901

Lanyon L, Giaschi D, Au Young S, Fitzpatrick K, Diao L, Bjornson B, Barton J (2009) Combined functional MRI & diffusion tensor imaging analysis of visual motion pathways. Journal of Neuro-Ophthalmology 29:96-103

Narasimhan S, Harrison E, Giaschi D. (2012) Quantitative measurement of interocular suppression in children with amblyopia. Vision Research 66:1-10

Narasimhan S, Giaschi D. (2012) The effect of dot speed and density on the development of global motion perception. Vision Research 62:102-107

Secen J, Culham J, Ho C, Giaschi D. (2011) Neural correlates of the multiple-object tracking deficit in amblyopia. Vision Research 51:2517-2527

Dr. I. Oruc

Delavari, P., Ozturan, G., Yilmaz, O, Oruc, I. (2023). Artificial intelligence, explainability, and the scientific method: A proof-of-concept study on novel retinal biomarker discovery. PNAS Nexus, pgad290.

Berk, A., Ozturan, G., Delavari, P., Maberley, D., Yilmaz, O., Oruc, I. (2023). Learning from small data: Classifying sex from retinal images via deep learning. PLOS One 18(8), e0289211.

Kamensek, T. Susilo, T., Iarocci, G., Oruc, I. (2023). Are people with autism prosopagnosic? Autism Research (accepted).

Kazemian, A., Oruc, I. Barton, J. (2022). A deep learning approach to studying the eye movements of prosopagnosic subjects. (submitted)

Mousavi, M., Oruc, I. (2020). Size effects in the recognition of blurry faces. Perception, 49(2): 222-231.

Mousavi, M., Oruc, I. (2020). Tuning of face expertise with a racially heterogeneous face-diet. Visual Cognition, DOI: 10.1080/13506285.2020.1836696

Oruc, I., Shafai, F., Murthy, S., Lages, P. & Ton, T. (2019). The adult face-diet: A naturalistic observation study. Vision Research, 157: 222-229

Oruc, I., Balas, B., Landy, M.S. (2019). Face perception: A brief journey through recent discoveries and current directions. Vision Research, 157: 1-9

Oruc, I., Shafai, F., Iarocci, G. (2018). Link between facial identity and expression abilities suggestive of origins of face impairments in autism: support for the social motivation hypothesis. Psychological Science, 29(11): 1859-1867.

Shafai, F., Oruc, I. (2018). Qualitatively similar processing for own- and other-race faces: Evidence from efficiency and equivalent input noise. Vision Research, 143: 58-65.

Albanico, A., Furubacke, A., Barton, J., Oruc, I. (2018). Perceptual efficiency and the inversion effect for faces, words and houses. Vision Research, 153: 91-97.

Shafai, F., Armstrong, K., Iarocci, G., Oruc, I. (2015). Visual orientation processing in autism spectrum disorder: no sign of enhanced early cortical function. Journal of Vision, 15(15):18, 1–15.

Dr. M. Spering’s Lab

Spering, M., Dias, E.C., Sanchez, J.L., Schütz, A.C., & Javitt, D.C. (2013). Efference copy failure during smooth pursuit eye movements in schizophrenia. J. Neurosci. 33:11779-11787.

Ke, S.R., Lam, J., Pai, D.K., & Spering, M. (2013). Directional asymmetries in human smooth pursuit eye movements. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 54:4409-4421.

Spering, M. & Carrasco, M. (2012). Similar effects of feature-based attention on motion perception and pursuit eye movements at different levels of awareness. J. Neurosci. 32:7594-7601.

Spering M. and Montagnini A. (2011). Do we track what we see? Evidence for common and independent processing of motion information for perception and smooth pursuit eye movements. Vision Res. 51:836-852.

Spering M., Pomplun M. and Carrasco M. (2011). Tracking without perceiving: A dissociation between motion perception and eye movements. Psychol. Sci. 22:216-225.

Spering M., Schütz A.C., Braun D.I. and Gegenfurtner K.R. (2011). Keep your eyes on the ball: Pursuit eye movements enhance the prediction of visual motion. J. Neurophysiol. 105:1756-1767.

Spering M. and Gegenfurtner K.R. (2008). Contextual effects on motion perception and smooth pursuit eye movements. Brain Res. 1225:76-85.

Spering M., Montagnini A. and Gegenfurtner, K.R. (2008). Competition between color and luminance in target selection for pursuit and saccadic eye movements. J. Vision 8:1-19.

Spering M. and Gegenfurtner K.R. (2007a). Contextual effects on smooth pursuit eye movements. J. Neurophysiol. 97:1353-1367.

Spering M. and Gegenfurtner K.R. (2007b). Contrast and assimilation in motion perception and smooth pursuit eye movements. J. Neurophysiol. 98:1355-1363.