School of Psychology

Contact Details

Email: klatimer01@qub.ac.uk

Office: Fourth Floor Postgraduate Office

PhD Details

First Supervisor: Dr Will Curran

Second Supervisor: Dr Mihalis Doumas

PhD Title: Investigating subsecond timing mechanisms in the visual system

Summary of Project: Previous research has shown that adapting to a stimulus presented in a localised region of visual space results in a reduction in the apparent duration of subsequent stimuli presented in the same localised region (Johnston, Arnold & Nishida, 2006; Burr, Tozzi & Morrone, 2007). However there is still debate as to whether or not this adaptation effect is retinotopic or spatiotopic in nature resulting in a lack of consensus as to the location of the timing mechanisms involved.

More recently Curran & Benton (2012) have shown that this duration compression following adaptation is direction-contingent. Their study provided evidence of duration compression caused by local motion and also by global motion, leading them to conclude that the timing mechanisms for subsecond durations are distributed throughout the visual system.

The current project will involve carrying out a number of different experiments to further investigate the nature of these mechanisms responsible for timing subsecond visual events. These experiments will include investigating the direction tuning of the direction-contingent effect found by Curran & Benton (2012) and also capitalising on this direction-contingency to further investigate whether or not the adaptation effect is retinotopic or spatiotopic.

Research Cluster: Perception Action Communication Research Cluster

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