Research

I am currently involved in several research projects as part of my graduate studies, all of which utilize our lab’s custom-built digital dual-Purkinje image eye-tracker. These projects span a wide range of applications—from advancing foveated rendering in virtual reality to improving diagnostic approaches for clinical populations. Below, you’ll find a summary of the work I’m leading or contributing to.

This project investigates how oculomotor behavior and task performance are influenced by the presence of salient distractors in a fine-grained foveal visual search task. I designed and implemented the task in C++ and collected data from nine naïve participants.

Our findings show that saliency alone does not impact either eye movements or task performance. However, when the distractor is task-relevant but not salient, oculomotor behavior is significantly affected, while performance remains stable. These results challenge dominant models of saliency-driven attention.

I presented this work as a talk at VSS 2023, and we are currently preparing the manuscript for journal submission.

Temporal modulations of extrafoveal sensitivity to changes during fixation

This project explores how sensitivity to peripheral changes evolves over time during fixation and immediately after saccade landing. The task, which I designed and programmed in C++, involved detecting subtle orientation changes in the presence or absence of salient distractors. Data were collected from 12 naïve participants.

The results reveal that participants were most sensitive to changes immediately following stimulus onset and saccade landing (0–150 ms), with sensitivity declining over time—dropping by approximately 17% around 350 ms. Notably, the presence of salient distractors had no measurable effect on performance, suggesting robust distractor suppression by the visual system in this context.

I presented this work as a poster at VSS 2022. Final data analyses are underway, and we are preparing the manuscript.

Fixational eye movements (FEMs) in patients with Schizophrenia and their contributions to abnormal vision

This clinical project examines the role of fixational eye movements in individuals with schizophrenia compared to age-matched healthy controls. I am involved in both data collection and analysis across two existing experimental paradigms in our lab.

The goal is to determine whether atypical FEMs contribute to the visual deficits observed in schizophrenia. Identifying such a relationship could help establish bio-behavioral markers for early diagnosis and disease progression. We have collected data from 17 patients and 19 controls so far, and we aim to complete data collection (20 per group) this summer. I presented this work as a talk at VSS, 2025 and we’re excited about the findings and are working toward preparing a manuscript.