A5085888314- Visual perception and processing mechanisms
- Retinal Development and Disorders
- Neural dynamics and brain function
- Ophthalmology and Visual Impairment Studies
- Child and Animal Learning Development
- Multisensory perception and integration
- Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Cognitive and developmental aspects of mathematical skills
- Face Recognition and Perception
- Williams Syndrome Research
- Functional Brain Connectivity Studies
- Visual Attention and Saliency Detection
- Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Action Observation and Synchronization
- Retinal and Optic Conditions
- Glaucoma and retinal disorders
- Tactile and Sensory Interactions
- Retinal Diseases and Treatments
- Retinal Imaging and Analysis
- COVID-19 and Mental Health
- Children's Physical and Motor Development
- Motor Control and Adaptation
- Hallucinations in medical conditions
- Psychedelics and Drug Studies
- Color perception and design
University College London
2016-2025
Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging
2022-2025
Institute of Ophthalmology
2012-2025
UCL Australia
2025
NIHR Moorfields Biomedical Research Centre
2023
Moorfields Eye Hospital
2021
Language Science (South Korea)
2020
Birkbeck, University of London
2010-2018
Neuroscience Institute
2012-2015
University of London
2011
Adults optimize perceptual judgements by integrating different types of sensory information [1Hillis J.M. Watt S.J. Landy M.S. Banks Slant from texture and disparity cues: optimal cue combination.J. Vis. 2004; 4: 967-992Crossref PubMed Scopus (340) Google Scholar, 2Ernst M.O. Humans integrate visual haptic in a statistically fashion.Nature. 2002; 415: 429-433Crossref (3062) Scholar]. This engages specialized neural circuits that fuse signals the same [3Ban H. Preston T.J. Meeson A. Welchman...
Abstract Recent advances in regenerative therapy have placed the treatment of previously incurable eye diseases within arms’ reach. Achromatopsia is a severe monogenic heritable retinal disease that disrupts cone function from birth, leaving patients with complete colour blindness, low acuity, photosensitivity and nystagmus. While successful gene-replacement non-primate models achromatopsia has raised widespread hopes for clinical treatment, it was yet to be determined if how these therapies...
Visuospatial abilities such as contrast sensitivity and Vernier acuity improve until late in childhood, but the neural mechanisms supporting these changes are poorly understood. We tested to which extent this development might reflect improved spatial of neuronal populations visual cortex. To do this, we measured BOLD-responses areas V1-V4 V3a, whilst 6- 12-year-old children adults watched large-field wedge ring stimuli MRI scanner, then fitted population receptive field (pRF) tuning...
Objectives: Eye disease and vision impairment are known to be associated with reduced mental wellbeing but less is about the of people near-normal levels vision. Here we examined association between self-reported eyesight wellbeing, controlling for eye disease, ill-health demographic factors, adults a wide range age Design: Population-based cross-sectional study. Participants: 7705 aged 16+ who participated in Health Survey England 2013, their status completed Warwick Edinburgh Mental...
The adult visual system is characterised by high-resolution foveal vision and a peripheral field limited crowding, the disruption to object recognition in clutter that gives summary 'gist' place of fine detail. In children, crowding elevated fovea, with estimates age where drops adult-like levels varying widely from 5 12+ years. As restricts key processes like reading, better characterisation this developmental trajectory critical. We developed methods optimised measure whereby adults...
Peripheral vision is crucial for daily activities and quality of life, yet traditional measures visual function like acuity primarily assess central vision. Visual field tests can evaluate peripheral but require extended focus combined with precise fixation, often very challenging patients severe sight loss. Functional MRI (fMRI) population receptive (pRF) mapping offers a non-invasive way to map scotomas limited by its reliance on single contrast levels the necessity accurate fixation.We...
Peripheral vision is crucial for daily activities and quality of life, yet traditional measures visual function like acuity primarily assess central vision. Visual field tests can evaluate peripheral but require extended focus combined with precise fixation, often very challenging patients severe sight loss. Functional MRI (fMRI) population receptive (pRF) mapping offers a non-invasive way to map scotomas limited by its reliance on single contrast levels the necessity accurate fixation.We...
Many ophthalmology appointments have been converted to telemedicine assessments. The use of a printed vision chart for that can be used by people who are excluded from digital testing has yet validated.To evaluate the repeatability visual acuity measured using Home Acuity Test (HAT) and agreement between HAT last in-clinic acuity.This diagnostic study was conducted May 11 22, 2020, among 50 control participants 100 adult outpatients reported subjectively stable were attending routine...
When assessing the perceptual abilities of children, researchers tend to use psychophysical techniques designed for with adults. However, children's poorer attentiveness might bias threshold estimates obtained by these methods. Here, we speed discrimination in 6- 7-year-old children UK Key Stage 1 (KS1), 7- 9-year-old 2 (KS2), and adults using three procedures: QUEST, a 1-up 2-down Levitt staircase, Method Constant Stimuli (MCS). We estimated inattentiveness responses "easy" catch trials. As...
In instances of asymmetric peripheral vision loss (e.g., glaucoma), binocular performance on simple psychophysical tasks static threshold perimetry) is well-predicted by the better seeing eye alone. This suggests that largely 'better-eye limited'. present study, we examine whether this also holds true for real-world tasks, or even a degraded fellow contributes important information daily living. Twelve normally-sighted adults performed an everyday visually-guided action (finding mobile...
Abstract Visual hallucinations can be phenomenologically divided into those of a simple or complex nature. Both and occur in pathological non-pathological states, also induced experimentally by visual stimulation deprivation—for example using high-frequency, eyes-open flicker (Ganzflicker) perceptual deprivation (Ganzfeld). Here we leverage the differences that these two techniques involve to investigate role bottom-up top-down processes shifting complexity hallucinations, assess whether...
Achromatopsia is an inherited retinal disease that affects 1 in 30,000–50,000 individuals and characterised by absence of functioning cone photoreceptors from birth. This results severely reduced visual acuity, no colour vision, marked sensitivity to light involuntary oscillations the eyes (nystagmus). In most cases, a single gene mutation prevents normal development photoreceptors, with mutations CNGB3 or CNGA3 being responsible for ∼80 % all patients achromatopsia. There are growing number...
Learning to read involves associating abstract visual shapes with familiar meanings. Embodiment theories suggest that word meaning is at least partially represented in distributed sensorimotor networks the brain (Barsalou, 2008; Pulvermueller, 2013). We explored how reading comprehension develops by tracking when and printed words start activating these "semantic" representations as children learn read. Adults aged 7-10 years showed clear category-specific cortical specialization for tool...
There are concerns that the social, economic and health impacts of COVID-19 unevenly distributed, exacerbating existing inequalities. Here we tested hypotheses that: (H1) magnitude these would be associated with symptoms depression anxiety early in pandemic, (H2) a range sociodemographic risk factors. Cross-sectional self-report data were collected from UK sample (N = 632) between 16th May 21st July 2020, coinciding stages pandemic first lockdown. Data on related including financial social...
Face processing is a crucial socio-cognitive ability. Is it acquired progressively or does constitute an innately-specified, face-processing module? The latter would be supported if some individuals with seriously impaired intelligence nonetheless showed intact abilities. Some theorists claim that Williams syndrome (WS) provides such evidence since, despite IQs in the 50s, adolescents/adults WS score normal range on standardised tests. Others argue atypical neural and cognitive processes...
Abstract Many everyday actions are implicit gambles because imprecisions in our visuomotor systems place probabilities on success or failure. Choosing optimal action strategies involves weighting the costs and gains of potential outcomes by their corresponding probabilities, requires stable representations one's own imprecisions. How this ability is acquired during development childhood when skills change drastically unknown. In a rewarded rapid reaching task, 6‐ to 11‐year‐old children...
It is often unclear which course of action gives the best outcome.We can reduce this uncertainty by gathering more information; but information always comes at a cost.For example, sports player waiting too long to judge ball's trajectory will run out time intercept it.Efficient samplers must therefore optimize trade-off: when costs collecting further exceed expected benefits, they should stop sampling and start acting.In visually guided tasks, adults make these trade-offs efficiently,...
Routine assessments of the Contrast Sensitivity Function [CSF] could be useful for diagnosis and monitoring amblyopia. However, current CSF measures are not clinically practical, as they too slow, boring, uncomfortable to sustain a young child's interest. Here we assess feasibility more gamified approach testing, in which maximum likelihood psychophysical algorithm (QUEST+) is combined with largely unconstrained user interface (no fixation target, head restraints, or discrete trials)....
Face recognition is widely considered to be "special", involving dedicated brain regions with unique patterns of selectivity. This contrasts increasing evidence for common 'visuospatial coding', where even high-level category-selective areas share the spatial properties earlier regions. Here we examined whether retinotopic face-selective vary around visual field in a similar fashion those early cortex, and these could explain variations face perception field. We carried out mapping (V1-V3)...