Event overview
Eirini Mavritsaki (Birmingham City Uni) discusses her use of computational models to observe differences in visual attention in East Asian and European American cultures
Attention and Cross-Cultural differences: Using a computational model to unveil some of the processes involved
DATE: Wednesday 30th November 2016
SPEAKER: Eirini Mavritsaki, Birmingham City University, UK
VENUE: Ben Pimlott Lecture Theatre, Goldsmiths, University of London
Although the majority of research in visual attention is based on European American cultures, additional research has shown differences in attending the visual field between members of collectivist East Asian cultures and individualist European American cultures.
Research into picture perception showed that East Asians are more likely than European Americans to attend to the perceptual field as a whole and to perceive relationships between a salient object and its background.
In Eirini Mavritsak's lab, she used a computational model and behavioural studies to further study the observed differences. The spiking Search over Time and Space (sSoTS) model simulates the traditional visual search task. In sSoTS, Eirini reduced saliency levels and by doing this could simulate effects of similar manipulations in traditional visual search experiments.
To further investigate the relationship between targets and distractors in the two cultural groups, and the differences amongst the cultural groups, Eirini used traditional visual search experiments in both bottom-up and top-down search and were able to replicate the effects found in the literature. In this talk Eirini Mavritsak will present the results from this work and discuss the role of saliency.
BIOGRAPHY: Dr Eirini Mavritsaki is a Senior Lecturer and Director of the Centre for Applied Psychological Research in Birmingham City University. Eirini did her PhD in The University of Sheffield and her postdoctoral research in The University of Birmingham and The University of Oxford in the areas of visual attention and learning.
Eirini’s work in visual attention has been expanded to developing a model based analysis of fMRI data and investigating the underlying processes involved in visual neglect, visual extinction and disorders like ADHD, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, while she further expanded her research to investigate cross-cultural differences in visual attention using behavioural and computational modelling studies. Eirini’s work was awarded the Cognitive Psychology Prize by the British Psychological Society in 2012.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 30 Nov 2016 | 4:00pm - 5:00pm |
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