The major focus of the Human Performance and Perception group is on the mechanisms of human perception and the relations between perception and action.
Group Leader: Arthur F. Kramer
Administrative Support Staff: Judy Allen
The specific research interests of the group include the following topics:
- the influence of distraction on driver performance and safety
- the role of top-down and bottom-up factors in the control of visual attention
- the representation of complex scenes
- the influence of environmental characteristics on postural control and gait
- display design for aviation
- the study of aging and cortical plasticity
- spatial navigation in virtual worlds
The group employs a large battery of techniques to address the issues described above. These methodologies include eye movement contingent upon control of visual displays; the recording of physiological measures, such as event-related brain potentials; cardiovascular measures, and fMRI; mathematical and statistical modeling of human responses to simple and complex displays; nonlinear analyses of complex movements; and complex, real-time visual simulations of flight, automobile driving, and other complex environments.