BIOGRAPHY
I received my PhD from the University of Nottingham. I subsequently carried out postdoctoral research at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, supported by a Commonwealth Fellowship. I joined the Department of Psychology at the University of Essex in 2011 as a lecturer.
RESEARCH OVERVIEW
Our visual environment is incredibly complex, and yet we deal with it effortlessly. My research takes a multilevel approach to understanding how people deal with this complexity so easily: how they perceive natural scenes and how they attend to specific elements within these scenes. I am currently developing these interests in three main directions.
First, I investigate where people look when inspecting photographs and other images. This involves analysis of visual properties (e.g. the brightness of different objects), and exploring how such properties combine with the viewers thoughts and feelings about the image.
Second, I am extending this research to look at eye movements and attention during video. By using dynamic stimuli, I am revealing new insights not possible with simpler tools. For example, the subtle shifts in conversation between a group of actors affects who is looked at, and when.
Third, I am pioneering investigations of cognition in the real world, for example by using equipment to measure which items attract attention while people are actually walking along the street.
At each level of my research I aim to describe the neural, cognitive and social influences on attention, in both typical and atypical (e.g. autism, visual agnosia, visuospatial neglect) populations. More broadly I have interests in many aspects of vision and cognition and welcome collaborations from other disciplines such as computer science.
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
Peer-reviewed articles
Foulsham T, Kingstone A, (2011), "Look at my poster! Active gaze, preference and memory during a poster session" Perception 40 (11) 1387 – 1389.
Foulsham, T., Walker, E. & Kingstone, A. (2011). The where, what and when of gaze allocation in the lab and the natural environment. Vision Research, 51 (17), 1920-1931.
Foulsham, T., Alan, R. & Kingstone, A. (2011). Scrambled eyes? Disrupting scene structure impedes focal processing and increases bottom-up guidance. Attention, Perception and Psychophysics, 73 (7), 2008-2025.
Foulsham, T., Barton, J.J.S., Kingstone, A., Dewhurst, R. & Underwood, G. (2011). Modeling eye movements in visual agnosia with a saliency map approach: bottom-up guidance or top-down strategy? Neural Networks, 24 (6), 665-677.
Foulsham, T. (2011). Correlation and cause when inferring attentional guidance in the rainforest and beyond. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 5:53.
Laidlaw, K.E.W., Foulsham, T., Kuhn, G. & Kingstone, A. (2011). Social attention to a live person is critically different than looking at a videotaped person. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108 (14), 5548-5553.
Foulsham, T., & Underwood, G. (2011). If saliency affects search then why? Evidence from normal and gaze-contingent search tasks in natural scenes. Cognitive Computation, 3, 48-63.
Foulsham, T., Teszka, R. & Kingstone, A. (2011). Saccade control in natural images is shaped by the information visible at fixation: Evidence from asymmetric gaze-contingent windows. Attention, Perception and Psychophysics, 73, 266-283.
Freeth, M., Foulsham, T., & Chapman, P. (2011). The influence of visual saliency on fixation patterns in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Neuropsychologia, 49, 156-160.
Foulsham, T., Cheng, J.T., Tracy, J.L., Henrich, J. & Kingstone, A. (2010). Gaze allocation in a dynamic situation: Effects of social status and speaking. Cognition, 117, 319-331.
Foulsham, T. & Kingstone, A. (2010). Asymmetries in the direction of saccades during perception of scenes and fractals: Effects of image type and image features. Vision Research, 50 (8), 779-795.
Foulsham, T., Barton, J., Kingstone, A., Dewhurst, R. & Underwood, G. (2009). Fixation and saliency during search of natural scenes: the case of visual agnosia. Neuropsychologia, 47, 1994-2003.
Underwood, G., Humphrey, K. & Foulsham, T. (2009). Saliency and scan patterns in the inspection of real-world scenes. Visual Cognition, 17 (6), 812-834.
Foulsham, T. & Underwood, G. (2009). Does conspicuity enhance distraction? Saliency and eye landing position when searching for objects. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62 (6), 1088-1098.
Foulsham, T., Kingstone, A. & Underwood, G. (2008). Turning the world around: patterns in saccade direction vary with picture orientation. Vision Research, 48, 17771790.
Foulsham, T. & Underwood, G. (2008). What can saliency models predict about eye movements? Spatial and sequential aspects of fixations during encoding and recognition. Journal of Vision, 8 (2), 6, 1-17. link to paper
Foulsham, T. & Underwood, G. (2007). How does the purpose of inspection influence the potency of visual salience in scene perception?Perception, 36, 1123-1138.
Underwood, G., Templeman, E., Lamming, L. & Foulsham, T. (2007). Isattention necessary for object identification? Evidence from eye movementsduring the inspection of real-world scenes. Consciousness and Cognition, 17, 159-170.
Underwood, G., Foulsham, T., van Loon, E., Humphreys, L., & Bloyce, J. (2006). Eye movements during scene inspection: A test of the saliency map hypothesis. European Journal Of Cognitive Psychology, 18 (3), 321-343.
Underwood, G., & Foulsham, T. (2006). Visual saliency and semantic incongruency influence eye movements when inspecting pictures. QuarterlyJournal of Experimental Psychology, 59 (11), 1931 1949.
Book chapters
Underwood, G., Humphrey, K., & Foulsham, T. (2008). Knowledge-Based Patterns of Remembering: Eye Movement Scanpaths Reflect Domain Experience. In HCI and usability for education and work, LNCS 5298. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 2008, 125-144.
Underwood, G., Foulsham, T., van Loon, E., & Underwood, J. (2005). Visual attention, visual saliency and eye movements during the inspection of natural scenes. In J. Mira and J. R. Alvarez (Eds.). Artificial intelligence and knowledge engineering applications: a bioinspired approach, LNCS 3562. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 2005, 459-468.
Published abstracts
Foulsham, T., Teszka, R. & Kingstone, A. (in press). What is the shape of the visual information that drives saccades in natural images? Journal of Vision.
Foulsham, T., Walker, E., & Kingstone, A. (2009). Gaze behaviour in the natural environment: Eye movements in video versus the real world. Journal of Vision, 9 (8), 446.
Foulsham, T., Barton, J., Kingstone, A., Dewhurst, R. & Underwood, G. (2008). Eye movements and saliency in a natural search task: evidence from visual agnosia. Journal of Vision, 8 (6), 381.
Conference presentations and posters
Foulsham, T., Teszka, R. & Kingstone, A. (2010). What is the shape of the visual information that drives saccades in natural images? Evidence from a gaze-contingent display. Poster presentation, Vision Sciences Society, Naples, Florida, US.
Jacobson, J., Foulsham, T. & Kingstone, A. (2010). A turn of the scene gives a different look. Poster presentation, NOWCAM 2010, University of Western Washington.
Freeth, M., Foulsham, T., & Chapman, P. (2010). Predictability of eye movements in ASD: The impact of visual saliency. Poster presentation, IMFAR Annual conference, Philadelphia, US.
Foulsham, T. & Kingstone, A. (2010). Gaze in the natural environment: does research into visual attention scale up? Oral presentation, CSBBCS Annual Conference, Halifax, NS, Canada.
Foulsham, T., Cheng, J., Tracy, J., Henrich, J. & Kingstone, A. (2010). Look who’s talking (and follow the leader)! Eye movements in a social interaction reveal effects of speaking and social status. Poster presentation, Annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Portland, Oregon, US.
Foulsham, T. & Kingstone, A. (2009). Eyes down! (And other asymmetries in the direction of eye movements during scene perception). Poster presentation, Annual Meeting of the Psychonomics Society, Boston, MA, US.
Foulsham, T. & Kingstone, A. (2009). Selecting a fixation position within objects, within scenes: Optimal and preferred viewing locations in natural stimuli. Poster presentation, OPAM Annual conference, Boston, MA, US.
Foulsham, T., Walker, E. & Kingstone, A. (2009). Gaze behaviour in the natural environment: Eye movements in video versus the real world. Poster presentation, Annual conference: Vision in 3D Environments, Centre for Vision Research, York University, Toronto, Canada.
Foulsham, T., Walker, E. & Kingstone, A. (2009). Gaze behaviour in the natural environment: Eye movements in video versus the real world. Poster presentation, Vision Sciences Society, Naples, Florida, US.
Foulsham, T., Barton, J., Kingstone, A., Dewhurst, R. & Underwood, G. (2008) Eye movements and saliency in a natural search task: evidence from visual agnosia. Oral presentation, Vision Sciences Society, Naples, Florida, US.
