Professor Iain Gilchrist

Summary

My research is focused on how humans gather information about their visual environment. Vision provides information so that we can interact with the world but that information is often not immediately available. As a result we have to sample the world to find the goal relevant information. This sampling involves a range of motor systems including eye, arm, head, and whole body movements and is a decision making process. One major focus of our work has been to understand how and why we move our eyes to sample the world, another is the mechanisms that support human foraging.

Recent and current grants

• Making decisions in an unstable world. EPSRC (2011-2015).
• The neural basis of response time variability. BBSRC Research Development Fellowship (2010-2013)
• Scanpaths when viewing faces. NWO & ESRC Bilateral Grant Scheme (2008-2012).
• Human Attention and Machine Learning. Cognitive Systems Foresight & EPSRC (2007-2010).
• Natural dynamic scenes and human vision. EPSRC (2007-2010).
• Modelling sequential effects in saccadic choice. The Wellcome Trust (2006-2009).
• The development of strategies for searching and navigating through space. MRC (2005-2008).

Biography

I took my first degree in Psychology (BSc) at the University of Durham (1989-1992) and then studied for a PhD at the University of Birmingham (1992-1995). I then worked as a Research Associate at the University of Durham (1995-1998). I joined the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Bristol as Lecturer in Neuropsychology in 1998, became Reader in 2002 and Professor in 2007.

I am a member of the: Experimental Psychology Society, Applied Vision Association and British Ocular Motor Group.  I am a Fellow of the British Psychological Society and an Associate Member of The Centre for Vision and Visual Cognition, University of Durham.

Teaching

Currently I supervise a range of graduate students.

PHD students supervised

• James Storey
• Mathew Asher
• Kate Longstaffe
• David Nickerson

Keywords

• Active Vision
• Decision making
• Eye-movements
• Eye-tracker
• Neuropsychology
• Visual cognition
• Visual spatial neglect
• fMRI
• MEG
• Cognition

Expertise

I am interested in human visual perception and cognition. My research combines what we see, how we see and the process of looking.

Memberships

Organisations

School of Experimental Psychology

Other sites

• Neuroscience

Experimental Psychology staff

• Experimental Psychology academic staff

Research themes

• Cognitive Processes
• Decision-making and Rationality

Research groups

• Perception Group
• Decision-making in an Unstable World

Links

•   home page

Recent publications

• Hinde, SJ, Smith, TJ & Gilchrist, ID, 2017, ‘In search of oculomotor capture during film viewing: Implications for the balance of top-down and bottom-up control in the saccadic system’. Vision Research, vol 134., pp. 7-17
• Anantrasirichai, P, Gilchrist, I & Bull, D, 2017, ‘Visual salience and priority estimation for locomotion using a deep convolutional neural network’. in: 2016 IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP 2016): Proceedings of a meeting held 25-28 September 2016, Phoenix, Arizona, USA. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), pp. 1599-1603
• Bourdeaux, CP, Thomas, MJC, Gould, TH, Malhotra, G, Jarvstad, A, Jones, T & Gilchrist, ID, 2016, ‘Increasing compliance with low tidal volume ventilation in the ICU with two nudge-based interventions: Evaluation through intervention time-series analyses’. BMJ Open, vol 6.
• Hughes, A, Southwell, RV, Gilchrist, I & J., TD, 2016, ‘Quantifying peripheral and foveal perceived differences in natural image patches to predict visual search performance’. Journal of Vision, vol 16.
• Kiyohito, I, Jolivald, A, Jitkrittum, W, Gilchrist, I, Dayan, P, Paul, E & Mendl, M, 2016, ‘Cognitive Bias in Ambiguity Judgements: Using Computational Models to Dissect the Effects of Mild Mood Manipulation in Humans’. PLoS ONE, vol 11.
• Anantrasirichai, P, Gilchrist, I & Bull, D, 2016, ‘Fixation Identification for Low-Sample-Rate Mobile Eye Trackers’. in: IEEE International Conference on Image Processing.
• Bompas, A, Sumner, P, Muthumumaraswamy, SD, Singh, KD & Gilchrist, ID, 2015, ‘The contribution of pre-stimulus neural oscillatory activity to spontaneous response time variability’. NeuroImage, vol 107., pp. 34-45
• To, MPS, Gilchrist, ID & Tolhurst, DJ, 2015, ‘Perception of differences in naturalistic dynamic scenes, and a V1-based model’. Journal of Vision, vol 15., pp. 15.1.19
• Williams, C, Gilchrist, ID, Fraser, S, McCarthy, HM, Parker, J, Warnes, P, Young, J & Hyvarinen, L, 2015, ‘Normative data for three tests of visuocognitive function in primary school children: cross-sectional study’. British Journal of Ophthalmology, vol 99., pp. 752-756
• Höfler, M, Gilchrist, ID & Koerner, CJ, 2015, ‘Guidance toward and away from distractors in repeated visual search’. Journal of Vision, vol 15., pp. 12

View complete publications list in the University of Bristol publications system

Networks & contacts

• Prof. John Findlay - University of Durham
• Dr Monika Harvey - University of Glasgow
• Dr Eugene McSorley- University of Reading
• Prof. Krish Singh - Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre
• Dr. Petroc Sumner - University of Cardiff
• Prof. Jan Theeuwes - Vije University Amsterdam