Projects

Projects


We're currently working on a multimodal study (in partnership with Dr. Peter Gordon's Language and Cognition Lab) that uses eye-tracking to study how the brain's visual system aids us in organizing perceptual inputs from our environment, to perceive reality as it is. In individuals who tend to have impaired vision, such as schizophrenia, autism, or dyslexia, neuroscience research has suggested that their visual impairments could be due to their dorsal stream deficits, which can lead to a less reactive visual system that is not as efficient in organizing visual information being received. Hence, leading to slower reading and inaccurate sight.

Our Perceptual Organization vision study uses a computerized test designed by Dr. Daniel Kurylo (Kurylo et al., 2017) that taps into visual processing of form and texture under varying degrees of noise. We use eye-tracking methods and pupillometry to examine biobehavioral markers associated with perceptual processing in this task. In particular, we study whether pupil diameter --an indicator of processing load--is related to task difficulty levels and whether this correlates with behavioral performance in terms of reaction time and accuracy. We also examine whether saccades in the horizontal vs. vertical direction are correlated with task difficulty.

These research efforts are combined with an EEG study and a clinical study in partnership with our collaborators at Mt. Sinai Hospital, where we employ the above task in patients with schizophrenia and schizotypal personality disorder.

Back to skip to quick links