New NIH grant with Krystel Huxlin, Marisa Carrasco and Brent Johnson to study efficacy of early visual training following stroke, following up on our 2020 study (see below). Press Release.
2020
Elizabeth Saionz, Michael Melnick and Krystel Huxlin's work reveals enhanced capacity for vision recovery during initial months following vision loss caused by occipital stroke. Press Release. Covered by Rochester First.
Michael Melnick, in collaboration Krystel Huxlin and Lorella Battelli, showed that brain stimulation can dramatically enhance learning, both in healthy adults and stroke patients. This work was published in The Journal of Neuroscience (PDF). University Press Release. Covered by Psychology Today and La Stampa.
Woon Ju Park and Duje Tadin discussing vision science factors in Claude Monet's Waterloo Bridge series of paintings exhibited at the Memorial Art Gallery. Covered by Observer.
2018
Our ongoing research on brain training in virtual reality (VR) was featured in a University Press Release. This collaboration with Jeff Bazarian (emergency medicine) and Vankee Lin (nursing) is testing whether VR will enhance the efficacy and the speed of brain training. In addition to healthy adults, this work is also focusing on
athletes recovering from concussions and older adults.
Woon Ju Park and Duje Tadin talk about vision in context of Memorial Art Gallery’s exhibition Monet’s Waterloo Bridge: Vision and Process.
University Press Release. Further coverage by Observer.
2016
Jeff Nyquist's research showing that brain training can yield rapid and stable vision improvements in children with low vision was published in Scientific Reports. This work was done in collaboration with Ruyuan Zhange and Joe Lappin (University Press Release, FullText, PDF).
Oh-Sang Kwon's model showing than a Kalman filter algorithm can explain motion and positions perception was published in PNAS (University Press Release, PDF). The model also explains the curveball illusion, motion-induced position shifts and peripheral slowing. This work was with late Dave Knill whose mathematical insight made this project possible.
Covered by CBS Sports and Vox.
Here are different illusions explained by the model. Below it is a super slow motion video of the curveball in action.
Congratulations to Michael for receiving honorable mention for his NSF Graduate Research Fellowship application.
Tadin lab gave a pair of presentations at the Rochester Museum & Science Center entitled "Visual illusions reveal mysteries of the brain." It is always fun to guess which illusions will capture the kids' attention.
Duje Tadin was awarded the 2014 Vision Sciences Society Young Investigator Award. The award presentation and the lecture took place at the VSS meeting. Also at VSS, Phil and Michael had talk presentations. Woon Ju, Oh-Sang, Kevin, Davis, Ana, Matt and Aaron presented posters.
Duje Tadin gave a Science Café presentation: Visual perception as a window to brain function. Earlier in the year, Tadin lab gave a pair of presentations at the Rochester Museum & Science Center entitled "Visual illusions reveal mysteries of the brain."
Our paper showing that most of us can "see" our own hand motion in total darkness was published in Psychological Science (PDF). Going beyond its flashy finding, this paper revealed the existence of fundamental interactions between kinesthesis (our action sense) and our vision. (University Press Release)
Covered by NPR and CNN (in-depth coverage by Gizmodo). The Scientist gave a nice account on how this study evolved, starting a decade ago during Duje's postdoc with Randolph Blake and finishing at U of Rochester where Kevin took a lead role.
Here is a short video, produced by Slate, that provides a pretty good summary of the key findings (if the embed doesn't work, here is the Slate link):
This is a longer video where we provide more background and explain the surprising link with synesthesia:
A collaboration with Joris Vangeneugden, Marius Peelen and Lorella Battelli revealed new insights into neural mechanisms of biological motion perception. This study, combining neuroimaging, brain stimulation and psychophysics, was published in The Journal of Neuroscience(PDF).
Lorella was interviewed by RAI (Italian TV). The part about our study starts about 11 min into the video (in Italian).
2013
Our paper revealing a surprisingly strong link between visual perception and IQ was published in Current Biology (PDF, University Press Release). Nice work, Michael!
Covered by BBC and NBC News.
A video produced by UR has about 4 million hits on YouTube! Below it is a video we helped produce for
The Telegraph -- not as flashy, but certainly more accurate to the actual task that we used (Important disclaimer: even the The Telegraph video cannot accurately measure your spatial suppression, and thus cannot be used to estimate your IQ).
Children with autism exhibit a substantial enhancement of motion perception (PDF). This paper, published in The Journal of Neuroscience, may provide new clues about sensory hypersensitivity in autism. (University Press Release)
Covered by PsychiatryOnline (in depth) and NPR
Here is our main result. Note a two-fold enhancement of motion perception at high contrast (lower numbers = better performance).
2011 study with Lorella Battelli (PDF) showed that temporarily deactivating human MT+ improves motion perception of large background-like stimuli -- making young adults behave like older adults. (University Press Release)
Covered by MSNBC, Scientific American, Time Magazine, The Telegraph, Wired and CBC Radio.
The "results" of the paper were also featured on SNL Weekend Update!
Davis' discovery of (ultra) rapid motion adaptation and its neural correlates was published in PNAS(PDF, Author summary). (University Press Release)
Covered by New Scientist, Science Daily and Live Science.
Here is a demo that we put together to illustrate perceptual consequences of motion adaptation (although on a much longer timescale than described in Davis' paper). Just start the movie, and keep your eyes in the center. After a few iterations, Rocky (the UR mascot) will start expanding.
