Faculty of Science and Information Technology

Dr Stuart Marlin

• BSc (Hons), Dalhousie University
• MSc, Dalhousie University
• PhD, University of British Columbia,
  Adaptation of Responses to Prolonged Stimulation in Single Neurons in Area 17 of the Cat

• Human and animal visual perception
• Distinctions between various pathways for motion processing
• Static and motion cues for object recognition (including faces)

My undergraduate work at Dalhousie University with Dr Vin LoLordo in the area of Animal Learning formed a distinct reductionist view of behaviour. This was furthered during my graduate work on the responses of single cells in the visual cortex, under the direction of Dr Max Cynader, at the University of British Columbia. However, my postdoctoral collaborations with Dr Barrie Frost allowed me to finally take the big picture into account as well as a mechanist approach. I have a strong interest in the Visual perception of motion.

I am currently doing research aimed at furthering our understanding of how various visual pathways process motion information. I have students investigating the role of various Gestalt principles of grouping in local and global motion processing and I am continuing my work on the perception of human self-motion or vection. Our visual systems possess numerous pathways which process various aspects of vision. I am hoping to distinguish between these systems to understand the mechanisms of our perception of our own movement through space. I have a small 'Vection Booth' where subjects can sit and experience the sensations of self-motion. By varying the kinds of motion stimuli, I hope to distinguish between a cortical motion pathway and the accessory optic visual pathway for this interesting phenomenon.

I am also interested in how we process human faces and to what extent motion information contributes to our face recognition system. Our face perception system is located in a region of our brain which receives input primarily from a shape and form pathway and not from a separate motion pathway. However it is my belief that this area receives a strong secondary 'motion' signal that facilitates our perception of human expressions. Lastly, I am also continuing to collaborate with Barrie Frost at Queen's University in Canada on the contribution of motion information to our perception of space in virtual reality environments.

• Functional Neuroimaging Laboratory
• Neuroscience Research Group

• Quantitative Methodology
• Biological Processes
• First Year Psychology Co-ordinator

• Honours Seminar Co-ordinator