Sensation & Perception

Jeremy M. Wolfe is Professor of Ophthalmology & Radiology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Wolfe was trained as a vision researcher/experimental psychologist and remains one today. His early work includes papers on binocular vision, adaptation, and accommodation. The bulk of his recent work has dealt with visual search and visual attention in the lab and in real world settings such as airport security and cancer screening. He taught Introductory Psychology for over twenty-five years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he won the Baker Memorial Prize for undergraduate teaching in 1989. He directs the Visual Attention Lab and the Center for Advanced Medical Imaging of Brigham & Women's Hospital. Keith R. Kluender is Professor and Head of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences and Professor of Psychological Sciences at Purdue University. His research encompasses: how people hear complex sounds such as speech; how experience shapes the way we hear; how what we hear guides our actions and communication; clinical problems of hearing impairment or language delay; and practical concerns about computer speech recognition and hearing aid design. Dr. Kluender is deeply committed to teaching, and has taught a wide array of courses―philosophical, psychological, and physiological. Dennis M. Levi has taught at the University of California, Berkeley since 2001. He is Professor in the School of Optometry and Professor at the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute. In the lab, Dr. Levi and colleagues use psychophysics, computational modeling, and brain imaging (fMRI) to study the neural mechanisms of normal pattern vision in humans, and to learn how they are degraded by abnormal visual experience (amblyopia). Linda M. Bartoshuk is Bushnell Professor, Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition at the University of Florida. Her research on taste has opened up broad new avenues for further study, establishing the impact of both genetic and pathological variation in taste on food preferences, diet, and health. She discovered that taste normally inhibits other oral sensations such that damage to taste leads to unexpected consequences like weight gain and intensified oral pain. Most recently, working with colleagues in Horticulture, her group found that a considerable amount of the sweetness in fruit is actually produced by interactions between taste and olfaction in the brain. This may lead to a new way to reduce sugar in foods and beverages. Rachel S. Herz is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown University and Part-time Faculty in the Psychology Department at Boston College. Her research focuses on a number of facets of olfactory cognition and perception and on emotion, memory, and motivated behavior. Her current research also focuses on the sensory and psychological mechanisms underlying food perception and eating behavior. Using an experimental approach grounded in evolutionary theory and incorporating both cognitive behavioral and neuropsychological techniques, Dr. Herz's overarching aim is to understand how biological mechanisms and cognitive processes interact to influence human perception and behavior. Roberta L. Klatzky is the Charles J. Queenan Jr. Professor of Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University, where she also holds faculty appointments in the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition and the Human-Computer Interaction Institute. She has done extensive research on haptic and visual object recognition, space perception and spatial thinking, and motor performance. Her work has application to haptic interfaces, navigation aids for the blind, image-guided surgery, teleoperation, and virtual environments. Daniel M. Merfeld is Professor of Otolaryngology at the Ohio State University College of Medicine and the Senior Vestibular Scientist at the Naval Medical Research Unit in Dayton. Much of his research career has been spent studying how the brain combines information from multiple sources, with a specific focus on how the brain processes ambiguous sensory information from the vestibular system in the presence of noise. Translational work includes research developing new methods to help diagnose patients experiencing vestibular symptoms and research developing vestibular implants for patients who have severe problems with their vestibular labyrinth.