I am trying to understand how vision works.
I think that detection and recognition of patterns are the most essential in vision.
Thus, I am interested in almost everything from simple feature detectors to mechanisms behind recognition and categorization of objects and scenes.
There is much more information in the visible world than we ever are able or need to use.
An important function of any visual system is to select the important and ignore irrelevant aspects of the visual world.
The mechanisms that mediate the selection are named “attention”.
Actually, almost all my studies are in some way related to attention.
Another frequent keyword is “crowding” - deterioration of perception when several objects are located close to each other,
usually in peripheral vision.
My usual methods are psychophysical experiments and mathematical or computational modeling.
But I believe that neurobiological studies are at least equally important.
When could we say that we have understood vision?
I suggest that when we can (at least in principle) build a machine or write a computer program
that could orient in the visual world as effectively as humans, monkeys and other living creatures.
Selected publications
Põder, E. (2012). Attentional gating models of object substitution masking. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Advance online publication.
Põder, E. (2011). Perception of multi-stable dot lattices in the visual periphery: An effect of internal positional noise. Journal of Vision, 11(2):11, 1–9.
Bachmann,T., Põder, E., & Luiga, I. (2004). Illusory reversal of temporal order: the bias to report a dimmer stimulus as the first, Vision Research, 44, 241-246.
Põder, E. (2003). Spatial-frequency spectra of printed characters and human visual perception. Vision Research, 43, 1507-1511.
