The University of Southampton

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Phone:: (023) 8059 3629
Email:: W.Adams@soton.ac.uk

Professor Wendy Adams BSc, PhD

Professor of Experimental Psychology, Deputy Head of Psychology (Director of Research),REF Champion

Related links: Personal homepage

Wendy Adams joined the University of Southampton’s Department of Psychology in 2004. She is a Professor of Experimental Psychology, and her research involves human visual perception and multisensory perception.

She received her BSc in Psychology from the University of Sheffield and stayed at Sheffield to complete a PhD in binocular vision with John Frisby. She was a postdoctoral research fellow with Marty Banks at UC Berkeley and then with Pascal Mamassian at the University of Glasgow.

Wendy is on the editorial board of Attention, Perception & Psychophysics. She has served on the abstract review committees for the VSS and Eurohaptics conferences, and on the grant assessment panel for the UK’s EPSRC. She has received grants from NIH, EPSRC, ESRC, Wellcome Trust and the British Academy.

Research

Publications

Teaching

Contact

Research interests

Research in my lab addresses a broad range of questions within human visual and multisensory perception. My research uses human psychophysics and computational modelling to understand how we perceive the world around us. Some current research themes are highlighted below:

Research projects

Multisensory perception: We study how humans combine information from vision and touch to estimate object properties such as shape. For example, when we touch a surface, haptic information is combined with visual signals so that we can estimate surface curvature, glossiness and roughness.

Natural scene statistics: Visual perception relies on knowledge about the structure of environment – to fully understand human vision, and to improve computer vision algorithms, we must understand the environment that we operate within. We have created the Southampton-York Natural Scenes dataset (https://syns.soton.ac.uk ), which characterises 100 natural scenes from 25 diverse indoor and outdoor scene categories such as cafés, offices, woodland, industrial sites and beaches. We are currently using the database to study a range of topics including 3D perception, scene classification and camouflage.

Material perception: We are interested in learning how humans combine visual and touch cues to understand material properties. We study how our perception of materials is affected by changes in illumination.

Faces, emotion and threat: Faces can convey important information, such as the presence of threat. We ask: are fearful faces special? Do they attract attention and reach awareness more quickly than other stimuli? Do threatening stimuli evoke physiological responses before we are aware of them?

Our own experimental studies and meta-analyses suggest that threat-sensitive mechanisms do not operate outside of awareness. However, some threat-relevant stimuli are particularly salient due to their low-level properties (e.g. luminance contrast) and this explains their dominance in binocular rivalry and masking paradigms.

We collaborate with clinical researchers to explore emotional face processing in populations with anxiety, and in adolescents with conduct disorder.

Motion, attention, perception and adaptation: Moving stimuli can capture attention, drive segmentation and produce robust after-effects. We explore interactions between motion and attention using various experimental paradigms, and have conducted a comprehensive meta-analysis and review of attention and motion adaptation.

Research group

Centre for Vision and Cognition (CVC)

Research project(s)

Emotional face processing without awareness

Exploring whether emotional face stimuli are processed in more efficient ways than other visual stimuli

Resolving visual ambiguity

A study of the choices made by the visual system

Shape and depth perception

Visual cues and assumptions

Visual adaptation and re-calibration

Articles

Martin-Key, N. A., Graf, E., Adams, W., & Fairchild, G. (2018). Facial emotion recognition and eye movement behaviour in conduct disorder. Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry, 59(3), 247–257. DOI: 10.1111/jcpp.12795
Bartlett, L., Graf, E., & Adams, W. (2018). The effects of attention and adaptation duration on the motion aftereffect. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance.
Hedger, N., Gray, K. L. H., Garner, M., & Adams, W. J. (2016). Are visual threats prioritized without awareness? A critical review and meta analysis involving 3 behavioral paradigms and 2696 observers. Psychological Bulletin, 1-123. DOI: 10.1037/bul0000054
Short, R., Adams, W., Garner, M., Sonuga-Barke, E., & Fairchild, G. (2016). Attentional biases to emotional faces in adolescents with conduct disorder, anxiety disorders, and comorbid conduct and anxiety disorders. Journal of Experimental Psychopathology, 7(3), 466-483. DOI: 10.5127/jep.053915
Short, R., Sonuga-Barke, E., Adams, W., & Fairchild, G. (2016). Does comorbid anxiety counteract emotion recognition deficits in conduct disorder? Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 57(8), 917-926. DOI: 10.1111/jcpp.12544
Adams, W. J. (2016). The development of audio-visual integration for temporal judgements. PLoS Computational Biology, [e1004865]. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004865
Adams, W., Elder, J., Graf, E., Leyland, J., Lugtigheid, A., & Muryy, A. (2016). The Southampton-York Natural Scenes (SYNS) dataset: statistics of surface attitude. Scientific Reports, 6(35805), 1-16. DOI: 10.1038/srep35805
Adams, W., Kerrigan, I. S., & Graf, E. (2016). Touch influences perceived gloss. Scientific Reports, 6(21866), 1-12. DOI: 10.1038/srep21866
Hedger, N., Adams, W. J., & Garner, M. (2015). Autonomic arousal and attentional orienting to visual threat are predicted by awareness. Journal of Experimental Psychology Human Perception & Performance, 41(3), 798-806. DOI: 10.1037/xhp0000051
Hedger, N., Adams, W. J., & Garner, M. (2015). Fearful faces have a sensory advantage in the competition for awareness. Journal of Experimental Psychology Human Perception & Performance, 41(6), 1748-1757. DOI: http://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0000127
Adams, W. J., & Elder, J. (2014). Effects of specular highlights on perceived surface convexity. PLoS Computational Biology, 10(5), 1-13. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003576
Gray, K. L. H., Adams, W. J., Hedger, N., Newton, K. E., & Garner, M. (2013). Faces and awareness: low-level, not emotional factors determine perceptual dominance. Emotion, 13(3), 537-544. DOI: 10.1037/a0031403
Kerrigan, I. S., & Adams, W. J. (2013). Highlights, disparity, and perceived gloss with convex and concave surfaces. Journal of Vision, 13(1), 9-[10pp]. DOI: 10.1167/13.1.9
Kerrigan, I. S., & Adams, W. J. (2013). Learning different light prior distributions for different contexts. Cognition, 127(1), 99-104. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2012.12.011
Adams, W. J., Gray, K. L. H., Garner, M. J., & Graf, E. W. (2011). On the ‘special’ status of emotional faces... Comment on Yang, Hong, and Blake (2010). Journal of Vision, 11(3, article 10), 1-4. DOI: 10.1167/11.3.10
Adams, W. J., Kerrigan, I. S., & Graf, E. W. (2010). Efficient visual recalibration from either visual or haptic feedback: The importance of being wrong. Journal of Neuroscience, 30(44), 14745-14749. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2749-10.2010
Adams, W. J., Gray, K. L. H., Garner, M., & Graf, E. W. (2010). High-level face adaptation without awareness. Psychological Science, 21(2), 205-210. DOI: 10.1177/0956797609359508
Lages, M., Adams, W. J., & Graf, E. W. (2009). Motion-aftereffect-induced blindness. Journal of Vision, 9(11), 7pp. DOI: 10.1167/9.11.11
Taya, S., Adams, W. J., Graf, E. W., & Lavie, N. (2009). The fate of task-irrelevant visual motion: perceptual load versus feature-based attention. Journal of Vision, 9(12), 12-[10pp]. DOI: 10.1167/9.12.12
Gray, K. L. H., Adams, W. J., & Garner, M. (2009). The influence of anxiety on the initial selection of emotional faces presented in binocular rivalry. Cognition, 113(1), 105-110. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2009.06.009
Knapen, T., Brascamp, J., Adams, W. J., & Graf, E. W. (2009). The spatial scale of perceptual memory in ambiguous figure perception. Journal of Vision, 9(13), 1-12. DOI: 10.1167/9.13.16
Adams, W. J. (2008). Frames of reference for the light-from-above prior in visual search and shape judgements. Cognition, 107(1), 137-150. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2007.08.006
Graf, E. W., & Adams, W. J. (2008). Surface organisation influences bistable vision. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 34(2), 502-508. DOI: 10.1037/0096-1523.34.2.502
Adams, W. J. (2007). A common light-prior for visual search, shape, and reflectance judgments. Journal of Vision, 7(11), 1-7.
Champion, R. A., & Adams, W. J. (2007). Modification of the convexity prior but not the light-from-above prior in visual search with shaded objects. Journal of Vision, 7(13), 1-10. DOI: 10.1167/7.13.10
Adams, W. J., & Mamassian, P. (2004). Bayesian combination of ambiguous shape cues. Journal of Vision, 4(10), 921-929. DOI: 10.1167/4.10.7
Adams, W. J., Graf, E. W., & Ernst, M. O. (2004). Experience can change the 'light-from-above' prior. Nature Neuroscience, 7(10), 1057-1058. DOI: 10.1038/nn1312
Graf, E. W., Adams, W. J., & Lages, M. (2004). Prior depth information can bias motion perception. Journal of Vision, 4(6), 427-433.
Adams, W. J., & Mamassian, P. (2004). The effects of task and saliency on latencies for colour and motion processing. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 271(1535), 139-146. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2003.2566
van Ee, R., Adams, W. J., & Mamassian, P. (2003). Bayesian modelling of cue interaction: bi-stability in stereoscopic slant perception. Journal of the Optical Society of America A. JOSA A: Optics, Image Science, and Vision, 20(7), 1398-1406.
Adams, W. J., & Mamassian, P. (2002). Common mechanisms for 2D tilt and 3D slant after-effects. Vision Research, 42(23), 2563-2568. DOI: 10.1016/S0042-6989(02)00269-9
Graf, E. W., Adams, W. J., & Lages, M. (2002). Modulating motion induced blindness with surface completion and depth ordering. Vision Research, 42(25), 2731-2735. DOI: 10.1016/S0042-6989(02)00390-5
Domini, F., Adams, W., & Banks, M. S. (2001). 3D after-effects are due to shape and not disparity adaptation. Vision Research, 41(21), 2733-2739. DOI: 10.1016/S0042-6989(01)00161-4
Adams, W. J., Banks, M. S., & van Ee, R. (2001). Adaptation to three-dimensional distortions in human vision. Nature Neuroscience, 4(11), 1063-1064. DOI: 10.1038/nn729
Porrill, J., Frisby, J. P., Adams, W. J., & Buckley, D. (1999). Robust and optimal use of information in stereo vision. Nature, 397, 63-66. DOI: 10.1038/16244
Adams, W., Frisby, J. P., Buckley, D., Gårding, J., Hippisley-Cox, S. D., & Porrill, J. (1996). Pooling of vertical disparities by the human visual system. Perception, 25(2), 165-176.

Conferences

Ehinger, K., Adams, W., Graf, E., & Elder, J. H. (2018). Local depth edge detection in humans and deep neural networks. In ICCV Workshop on Mutual Benefits of Cognitive and Computer Vision (pp. 2681-2689). (IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision Workshops). Piscataway: IEEE.
Adams, W. J., Muryy, A. A., Graf, E. W., Lugtigheid, A. J., & Elder, J. H. (2015). The Southampton York natural scenes (SYNS) dataset. In CVMP '15 Proceedings of the 12th European Conference on Visual Media Production New York, US: ACM. DOI: 10.1145/2824840.2824857

I enjoy working with undergraduate and postgraduate students at all levels. I currently teach on the following undergraduate courses:

Thinking Psychologically (Year 1)
Perception (Year 2)
Understanding your world with vision, touch, sound and taste (Year 3)

I supervise final year research projects on a range of topics, and also work with Masters level and PhD students.

Professor Wendy Adams
Building 44 Highfield Campus University of Southampton SO17 1BJ

Room Number:44/4103

Professor Wendy Adams's personal home page

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