Lynn Robertson

Professor of Vision Science, Psychology, and Neuroscience

Research Interests

Many projects are ongoing and include studies of the neural and cognitive basis of:

• the visual perception of space and objects as unitary wholes
• perception of spatial relationships between objects and object parts
• spatial attention, visual search and feature integration (binding)
• hemispheric differences in visual processing (e.g., global/local, part/whole relationships)
• neuropsychological deficits of hemispatial neglect and other visual-spatial deficits
• developmental perceptual abnormalities such as observed in synesthesia and congenital prosopagnosia.

We test a variety of participants populations in tasks with a variety of methods. Some studies test neurological patients with brain damage that produce visual problems to determine what areas of the brain are necessary to perform certain functions. We often use different measures in different participant populations to obtain evidence that converges on understanding each particular issue. We are especially interested in neural and cognitive mechanisms that support visual perception and spatial attention above and below the level of perceptual awareness. The overriding question that links the various projects is how perceptual organization and spatial attention interact to guide what we perceive, how we perceive it and how selection functions to give priority to different features and objects in visual processing.

Selected Publications

Bentin, S., DeGutis, J.M., D'Esposito, M. & Robertson, L.C. (2007). Too many trees to see the forest: Performance, ERP and fMRI manifestations of integrative congenital prosopagnosia. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. 19, 132-146.

Robertson, L.C. & Brooks, J.L. (2006). Feature detection and spatial deficits. Visual Cognition, 14, 851-862.

Robertson, L.C. (2004). Space, Objects, Minds and Brains. New York: Psychology Press (Francis & Taylor),

Robertson, L.C. (2003). Binding, spatial attention and perceptual awareness. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 4, 93-102.

Robertson, L.C. & Ivry, R. (2000). Hemispheric asymmetry: Attention to visual and auditory primitives. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 9, 59-63.

Robertson, L.C. & Rafal, R. (2000). Disorders of visual attention. In M. Gazzaniga (Ed.).The New Cognitive Neuroscience. 2nd Edition, Cambridge: MIT Press.

Friedman-Hill, S., Robertson, L.C. & Treisman, A. (1995). Parietal contributions to visual feature binding: Evidence from a patient with bilateral lesions. Science, 269, 853-855.

Links

Robertson Laboratory

Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute Web Page

Psychology Department Web Page

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