Current Research
Attention and PlasticityHere we are studying a deep, general question about the architecture of the human brain: how adaptable, how plastic, is your brain in adulthood? The experiments are centered around simulating losses in image quality in an eye by inducing various visual deprivations (say, by wearing an eye patch) over various time periods (minutes to hours). In this way, we hope to determine the necessary and sufficient conditions to manipulate ocular dominance plasticity. This will not only inform our basic understanding of the plasticity of visual cortex, but could inspire new approaches to treatments for amblyopia.
Interested in participating? Click here |
Procedural AttentionThe visual system is selective and limited in processing all information at once. Prioritizing a subset of behaviorally relevant information for full processing, through visual attention, is necessary for useful interaction with the visual environment. Conventionally, attentional allocation is conceived as interplay of bottom-up (where object saliency drives our attention) and top-down (where we allocate attention to items that are of interest to us) mechanisms. The study's primary approach is to observe reading performance while the reader’s, resource intensive, goal-directed attentional selection mechanism is occupied by another task that requires full engagement.
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Working Memory and Learning in development |
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Memory Game in Toddlers
How much could toddlers remember in a short time? How could working memory help them to solve more complex task ? In the series of projects, infants/toddlers will watch several clips of video animations, and eye trackers will be used to track toddlers' eye movement. The study currently happens in baby lab, Umass Boston! Interested in participating? Click here |
Previous Research
Object Salience Calibration
One line of research is looking to refine and apply methods for calibrating object 'salience' across different feature dimensions. This is especially useful in the field of infant cognition, where much is studied using a before/after kind of paradigm, so, e.g. hiding a red circle and seeing if the baby notices when it reemerges as a green circle vs., say, a red square. People make strong claims from such research ("babies remember shape at 6 months but not color"). But, how do we know the test was fair? Why red vs. green? What about red vs. blue? Or red vs. flashing hot pink? When/How could we know if the magnitude of the color difference was equal to that for the shape? Isn't that a prerequisite for a fair test (and won't making bad choices affect the direction of results)? So, we developed a paradigm that allows for calibration of these differences, so that people could make fair tests. This work is done in collaboration with Dr. Kaldy's Baby Lab.
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Scale From Form |
Second is a long-standing research project on the cues to scale (and therefore distance) that are hidden in the structure (and hence visual pattern) of natural forms. As an analogy, consider that you could tell the scale of a water formation by noting that it has a curved top surface. Any piece of water that has its form determined largely by surface tension must be at a scale where surface tension beats gravity, so a small scale. Another analogy would be if I showed you a novel land-dwelling creature, devoid of scale cues, but you note it has very long thin legs; this must be a tiny insect-scale creature. So, natural forms - we study rocks - should have encoded in their patterns the physical forces that dominate; these are determined by scale; so scale should follow from form. We know that this is true already from our previous experiments, and now we are specifying the cue. Once we do that, we can look for other cues in other forms. This is all part of a larger enterprise where we expect the visual system does not code patterns as bitmapped images, but instead stores/recognizes generative algorithms (the equation for a circle, and a diameter vs. a pixel by pixel bitmap specification).
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When Attention Goes Dark |
Another line is related to visual attention. In particular I am interested in removing visual awareness from visual attention (I call this 'dark attention') and then investigating out what dark attention can do. Think of visual attention like a factory, with a supervisor (awareness/cognitive supervision/executive control) and workers (the systems doing the grunt work of manipulating and allocating resources). For any new task, the supervisor has a big role ("for this experiment, please attend to the red dots while they are going left and then when you hear a beep attend to the green square and then....") but for tasks that are well practiced, maybe the supervisor could be removed altogether, and the workers can operate on their own. In other words, maybe we can make an experiment where you are 'distracted' (e.g. talking on the cell phone or doing mental arithmetic) but your resources (dark attention) are still being shuffled around appropriately (given a task and context). This is still considered a paradox by most definitions of attention - to be attending in one place but have your awareness somewhere else.
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Publications
Ramamurthy, M., & Blaser, E. (2017). New rules for visual selection: Isolating procedural attention. Ramamurthy & Blaser. Journal of vision, 17(2), 18-18.
Király, I., Takacs, S., Kaldy, Z., & Blaser, E. (2016). Preschoolers have better long‐term memory for rhyming text than adults. Developmental science.
Kaldy Z., Guillory, S., & Blaser, E. (2015). Delayed Match Retrieval: A novel anticipation-based Visual Working Memory paradigm. Developmental Science.
Kaldy, Z., Kraper, C., Carter, A., & Blaser, E. (2011). Toddlers with Autism Spectrum Disorder are more successful at visual search than typically developing toddlers.Developmental Science.
Blaser, E. & Kaldy (2010). Infants get five stars on iconic memory tests: A partial report test of 6-month-old infants’ iconic memory capacity. Psych Science.
Vishwanath, D. & Blaser, E. (2010). Retinal blur and the perception of egocentric distance. Journal of Vision.
Blaser, E. & Shepard, T (2009). Maximal motion aftereffects in spite of diverted awareness. Vision Research.
Kaldy, Z. & Blaser, E. (2009) How to compare apples and oranges: Infants’ visual memory or equally salient shape and luminance changes. Infancy.
Blaser, E. & Sperling, G. (2008) When is motion motion? Perception.
Kaldy, Z., Blaser, E., & Leslie, A., (2006). A new method for calibrating perceptual salience across dimensions in infants: the case of color vs. luminance. Developmental Science, 9:5, 482–489
Blaser, E., Papathomas, T.V., & Vidnyanszky, Z. (2005). Binding of motion and colour is local and automatic. European Journal of Neuroscience, 21, 2040-2044
Papathomas T.V., Vidnyanszky Z., Blaser E. (2004). Transparent motion: a powerful tool to study segmentation, integration, adaptation, and attentional selection. Jenkin, M. and Harris, L. (eds.) Seeing Spatial Form, Oxford University Press, 2004.
Sohn, W., Papathomas, T., Blaser, E., & Vidnyanszky, Z. (2004). Object-based cross-attribute attentional modulation from color to motion. Vision Research, 44, 1437-1443.
Vidnyanszky, Z., Blaser, E., & Papathomas, T. (2002). Motion integration during motion aftereffects. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 6, 157-161.
Blaser, E. & Domini, F. (2002). The conjunction of feature and depth information. Vision Research, 42, 273-279.
Sperling, G., Reeves A., Blaser, E., Lu, Z-L, & Weichselgartner, E. (2001). Two computational models of attention. Visual attention and cortical circuits, MIT Press.
Blaser, E., Pylyshyn, Z.W., & Holcombe, A. (2000). Tracking an object through feature-space. Nature, 408, 196-199.
Király, I., Takacs, S., Kaldy, Z., & Blaser, E. (2016). Preschoolers have better long‐term memory for rhyming text than adults. Developmental science.
Kaldy Z., Guillory, S., & Blaser, E. (2015). Delayed Match Retrieval: A novel anticipation-based Visual Working Memory paradigm. Developmental Science.
Kaldy, Z., Kraper, C., Carter, A., & Blaser, E. (2011). Toddlers with Autism Spectrum Disorder are more successful at visual search than typically developing toddlers.Developmental Science.
Blaser, E. & Kaldy (2010). Infants get five stars on iconic memory tests: A partial report test of 6-month-old infants’ iconic memory capacity. Psych Science.
Vishwanath, D. & Blaser, E. (2010). Retinal blur and the perception of egocentric distance. Journal of Vision.
Blaser, E. & Shepard, T (2009). Maximal motion aftereffects in spite of diverted awareness. Vision Research.
Kaldy, Z. & Blaser, E. (2009) How to compare apples and oranges: Infants’ visual memory or equally salient shape and luminance changes. Infancy.
Blaser, E. & Sperling, G. (2008) When is motion motion? Perception.
Kaldy, Z., Blaser, E., & Leslie, A., (2006). A new method for calibrating perceptual salience across dimensions in infants: the case of color vs. luminance. Developmental Science, 9:5, 482–489
Blaser, E., Papathomas, T.V., & Vidnyanszky, Z. (2005). Binding of motion and colour is local and automatic. European Journal of Neuroscience, 21, 2040-2044
Papathomas T.V., Vidnyanszky Z., Blaser E. (2004). Transparent motion: a powerful tool to study segmentation, integration, adaptation, and attentional selection. Jenkin, M. and Harris, L. (eds.) Seeing Spatial Form, Oxford University Press, 2004.
Sohn, W., Papathomas, T., Blaser, E., & Vidnyanszky, Z. (2004). Object-based cross-attribute attentional modulation from color to motion. Vision Research, 44, 1437-1443.
Vidnyanszky, Z., Blaser, E., & Papathomas, T. (2002). Motion integration during motion aftereffects. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 6, 157-161.
Blaser, E. & Domini, F. (2002). The conjunction of feature and depth information. Vision Research, 42, 273-279.
Sperling, G., Reeves A., Blaser, E., Lu, Z-L, & Weichselgartner, E. (2001). Two computational models of attention. Visual attention and cortical circuits, MIT Press.
Blaser, E., Pylyshyn, Z.W., & Holcombe, A. (2000). Tracking an object through feature-space. Nature, 408, 196-199.