Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Horizon - Is seeing believing?

BBC TWO in the UK broadcast a wonderful factual programme on sensory illusions (Horizon, 9pm, 18/10/10). The programme covered many well known sensory illusions such as the McGurk effect, multimodal illusions such as the effect of sound and colour on taste perception, magic tricks such as Gustav Kuhn's disappearing ball illusion, and the perceptual completion of impossible figures. If you are interested in sensory illusions the programme provides a nice, succinct introduction. The programme also goes on to talk about the science of illusions and how illusions allow us to understand the cognitive processes and neurology of perception.

The programme also introduced the phenomenon of Synaesthesia in which perception through one modality (e.g. vision) triggers perceptual experiences in another modality (e.g. taste). We all have some synaesthetic experiences such as smells triggering specific visual memories but for people with more developed synaesthesia these cross-modal percepts are richer and more complex. Synaesthesia is a fascinating research area which up until a few years ago was dismissed by the Psychological research community as hokum. Thankfully a new generation of researchers such as Jules Simner (Edinburgh) have used clever behavioural measures combined with neuroimaging to show that synaeasthesia is a real phenomena and one which can seriously advance our understanding of sensory perception.

Viewers in the UK can catch the programme on the BBC iPlayer:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/vhw1d/

For other recent public presentations of sensory illusions see the work of Susanna Martinez-Conde (Barrow institute), the special issue of Scientific American, and the Illusion of the Year contest at the Vision Sciences Society annual meeting.

Discontinuity Boy

After 13 years in Edinburgh, a BSc. in Artificial Intelligence and Psychology, a PhD in Cognitive Science, and a couple of post-docs I have finally left! 13 years of continuity have come to an end. This sudden discontinuity has been brought about by my move to Birkbeck, University of London to take up my first lectureship in Psychology. Thank you to everybody who made my time in Edinburgh so enjoyable, my friends, colleagues, collaborators, and students. And thank you Birkbeck for offering me this big break just when I needed it.

My new contact details are :

Tim J. Smith, Ph.D.
Lecturer
Rm 501d
Department of Psychological Sciences
Birkbeck, University of London
Malet Street,
London WC1E 7HX

Tel: +44(0)20 7631 6503
Fax: +44 (0)20 7631 6312

e-mail: tj.smith@bbk.ac.uk
url: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/psyc/staff/academic/tsmith

Don't worry, this does not signify the end of 'Continuity Boy'. Far from it. I will continue updating this research blog and I look forward to regaling you with details of the research coming out of my lab.