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Professor David Alais PhD (University of Sydney)

David Alais
Position: Professor

Office: Rm 506, Griffith Taylor Building
Ph: +61 2 9351 2873
Fax: +61 2 9351 2603
Email:

Postal Address:
School of Psychology
Brennan MacCallum Building (A18)
The University of Sydney
NSW 2006
Australia

 


 

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Research Interests

A major research interest is cross-modal perception, specifically audio-visual. How does the brain combine sensory information from audition and vision? The primary approach is through human psychophysical experiments which measure aspects of an observer’s perception of sounds, images or combinations of both. Our research may focus on spatial aspects (e.g., localisation of events) or on temporal aspects (e.g, timing and order judgments). From these measurements, inferences are drawn as to how the brain processes audiovisual sensory information to give rise to multimodal perception.

The lab also conducts research into unisensory perception, either auditory or visual. Auditory research is done in close collaboration with Assoc. Professor Carlile’s Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory in the School of Medical Sciences, allowing access to sophisticated auditory stimuli and signal processing, and to a large anechoic chamber allowing auditory work to be done in the 'free field'. Alternatively, we use the Carlile lab's sophisticated virtual auditory space (VAS) technology to explore auditory perception with virtual sound.

Other research in the lab focuses purely on visual processes. A major interest addresses how the brain resolves visual conflict between the eyes, as when the eyes receive different images. Interocular conflict gives rise to 'binocular rivalry' in which the brain's conscious state alternates between perceiving the image in one eye and perceiving the image in the other eye. An overview of the state of this burgeoning field can be found in a recent book by David Alais and Randolph Blake: "Binocular Rivalry", MIT Press (2005).

Further work in visual perception explores how motion and temporal modulation is encoded by the visual system. We are currently developing new ideas on how 'temporal filters' function in human vision to encode the temporal dimension of visual input. This work is now being extended to an analysis of temporal filtering in natural image sequences (i.e., movies), while other work is looking at the possible role of streak signals left by fast moving images in enhancing motion direction perception.



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Current & Previous Appointments

1996-1998 Postdoctoral Fellow, Vanderbilt Vision Research Center, Vanderbilt University, USA.
1998-2000 Research Fellow, Human Frontiers Science Programme, Collège de France, Paris, France.
2000-2002 Marie Curie Fellow, European Commission, Institute of Neurophysiology, Pisa, Italy.
2003-2005 Australian Research Fellow, School of Medical Sciences, University of Sydney.
2005-2007 Australian Research Fellow, School of Psychology, University of Sydney.
2008-2012 QEII Research Fellow, School of Psychologhy, University of Sydney.


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Publications

Books

  1. D Alais, R Blake (Eds). Binocular Rivalry. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press (2005).

Book chapters

  1. D Alais, R Blake (2013). Multistability and binocular rivalry. In J Wagemans (Ed), The Oxford Handbook of Perceptual Organization. London, UK: Oxford University Press.
  2. D Alais, V Best, P Niall, C Semmler, D Woolford (2010). Hearing and the perception of sound. In I Freckelton & P Shelby (Eds.), Expert Evidence. Canberra, Australia: ANU Press.
  3. D Alais (2005). Attentional modulation of motion adaptation. In C Clifford, G Rhodes (Eds.), Fitting the Mind to the World: Adaptation and Aftereffects in High-Level Vision. London, UK: Oxford University Press.
  4. A Freeman, V Nguyen, D Alais (2005). The nature and depth of binocular rivalry suppression. In D Alais, R Blake (Eds.) Binocular Rivalry and Perceptual Ambiguity. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  5. J Culham, T Ledgeway, S Nishida, P Cavanagh, M von Grunau, M Kwas, D Alais, J Raymond. Higher order motion aftereffects (1998). In G Mather, S Anstis, F Verstraten (Eds.), The Motion After-effect: A Modern Prospective. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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Refereed Journal Articles

  1. S Wardle, D Alais (2013). Evidence for speed sensitivity to motion in depth from binocular cues. Journal of Vision 10;13(1). doi:pii: 17. 10.1167/13.1.17.
  2. D Apthorp, DS Schwarzkopf, C Kaul, B Bahrami, D Alais, G Rees (2013) Direct evidence for encoding of motion streaks in human visual cortex. Proceedings of the Royal Society, Series B, (in press).
  3. J Cass, A Johnston, P Bex, D Alais (2012). Orientation-specificity of adaptation: isotropic adaptation is purely monocular. PLoS One 7(11):e47425. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0047425.
  4. M Zannoli, J Cass, D Alais & P Mamassian (2012). Disparity-based stereomotion detectors are poorly suited to track 2D motion. Journal of Vision, 12(11):15,1-9, doi:pii: 15. 10.1167/12.11.15
  5. D Alais, A Parker (2012). Binocular rivalry produced by temporal frequency differences. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 6:227, 1-16.
  6. M Zannoli, J Cass, P Mamassian & D Alais (2012). Synchronized audio-visual transients drive efficient visual search for motion-in-depth. PLoS One, 7(5):e37190.
  7. S Wardle, P Bex, J Cass, D Alais (2012). Stereoacuity in the periphery is limited by internal noise. Journal of Vision, 12(6), 12, 1-12.
  8. K Allen, D Alais, S Carlile (2012). A collection of pseudo-words to study multi-talker speech intelligibility without shifts of spatial attention. Frontiers in Psychology, 3:49, 1-3.
  9. D Alais (2012). Binocular rivalry: Competition and inhibition in perception. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, 3, 87-103.
  10. D Alais, D Apthorp, A Karmann, J Cass (2011). Temporal integration of movement: the time-course of motion streaks revealed by masking. PLoS One, 6(12):e28675.
  11. J Cass, E van der Burg, D Alais (2011). Finding flicker: Critical differences in temporal frequency capture attention. Frontiers in Psychology, 2:320, 1-1-7.
  12. C Paffen, D Alais (2011). Attentional modulation of binocular rivalry. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 5:105, 1-10.
  13. J Taubert, D Alais (2011). Identity aftereffects, but not composite effects, are contingent on contrast polarity. Perception, 40, 422-436.
  14. D Apthorp, J Cass, D Alais (2011). The spatial tuning of `motion streak' mechanisms revealed by masking and adaptation. Journal of Vision, 11(7), 17, 1-16.
  15. S Wuerger, D Alais, M Gondan (2011). Multisensorial perception collection. Seeing and Perceiving, 24, 65.
  16. K Allen, D Alais, B Shinn-Cunningham, S Carlile (2011). Masker location uncertainty impairs stop consonant intelligibility: Evidence for suppression of distractors in two-talker contexts. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 130, 2043-2053.
  17. J Taubert, D Apthorp, D Aagten-Murphy, D Alais (2011). The role of holistic processing in face perception: Evidence from the face inversion effect. Vision Research, 51, 1273-1278.
  18. J Hartcher-O’Brien, D Alais (2011). Temporal ventriloquism in a purely temporal context. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 37, 1383-1395.
  19. S Wardle, J Cass, K Brooks, D Alais (2010). Breaking camouflage: Binocular disparity reduces contrast masking in natural images. Journal of Vision, 10(14), 38, 1-12.
  20. S Dakin, D Apthorp, D Alais (2010). Anisotropies in judging the direction of moving natural scenes. Journal of Vision, 10(11), 5, 1-19.
  21. D Alais (2010). Helping the visual system find its target Comment on “Crossmodal influences on visual perception” by Shams and Kim. Physics of Life Reviews, 7, 293-294.
  22. D Apthorp, J Cass, D Alais (2010). Orientation tuning of contrast masking caused by motion streaks. Journal of Vision, 10(10), 11, 1-13.
  23. D Alais, J Cass (2010). Multisensory perceptual learning of temporal order: audiovisual learning transfers to vision but not audition. PLoS ONE, 5(6):e11283.
  24. D Alais, J Cass, R O’Shea, R Blake (2010). Visual sensitivity underlying changes in visual consciousness. Current Biology 20, 1362-1367.
  25. D Alais, J van Boxtel, A Parker, R van Ee (2010). Attending to auditory signals slows visual alternations in binocular rivalry. Vision Research, 50, 929-35.
  26. E van der Burg, J Cass, C Olivers, J Theeuwes, D Alais (2010). Efficient visual search from non-spatial auditory cues requires more than temporal synchrony. PLoS ONE, 5(5):e10664.
  27. D Alais, F Newell, P Mamassian (2010). Multisensory processing in review: From physiology to behaviour. Seeing and Perceiving, 23, 3-38.
  28. J Cass, S Stuit, P Bex, D Alais (2009). Orientation bandwidths are invariant across spatio-temporal frequency after isotropic components are removed. Journal of Vision, 9(12), 17, 1-14.
  29. S Stuit, J Cass, C Paffen, D Alais (2009). Orientation-tuned suppression in binocular rivalry reveals general and specific components of rivalry suppression. Journal of Vision, 9(11), 17, 1-15.
  30. J Cass, D Alais, B Spehar, P Bex (2009). Temporal whitening: transient noise perceptually equalizes the 1/f temporal amplitude spectrum. Journal of Vision, 9(10), 12, 1-19.
  31. R van Ee, J van Boxtel, A Parker, D Alais (2009). Multisensory congruency as a mechanism for attentional control over perceptual selection. Journal of Neuroscience 29, 11641-9.
  32. J Taubert, D Alais (2009). The composite illusion requires composite face stimuli to be biologically plausible. Vision Research, 49, 1877-85.
  33. D Apthorp, P Wenderoth, D Alais (2009). Motion streaks in fast motion rivalry cause orientation-selective suppression. Journal of Vision, 9(5), 10, 1-14.
  34. O’Shea R, Parker A, La Rooy D, D Alais (2009). Monocular rivalry exhibits three hallmarks of binocular rivalry: Evidence for common processes. Vision Research 49, 671-81.
  35. A Bentvelzen, J Leung, D Alais (2009). Discriminating audiovisual speed: optimal integration of conflicting speeds defaults to probability summation when component reliabilities diverge. Perception, 38, 966-87.
  36. J Cass, C Clifford, D Alais, B Spehar (2009). Temporal structure of chromatic channels revealed through masking. Journal of Vision, 9(5), 17, 1-15.
  37. D Apthorp, D Alais (2009). Tilt aftereffects and tilt illusions induced by fast translational motion: evidence for motion streaks. Journal of Vision, 9(1), 27, 1-11.
  38. K Allen, D Alais, S Carlile (2009). Speech intelligibility reduces over distance from an attended location: evidence for an auditory spatial gradient of attention. Attention, Perception & Psychophysics, 71, 164-173.
  39. J Cooper, S Carlile, D Alais (2008). Distortions of auditory space during rapid head turns. Experimental Brain Research, 191, 209-19.
  40. R Bhardwaj, R O’Shea, D Alais, A Parker (2008). Probing visual consciousness: Rivalry between eyes and images. Journal of Vision 8(11), 1-13. http://journalofvision.org/8/11/2.
  41. J Leung, D Alais, S Carlile (2008). Compression of auditory space during rapid head turns. PNAS 105, 6492-7.
  42. J van Boxtel, D Alais, R van Ee (2008). Retinotopic and non-retinotopic stimulus encoding in binocular rivalry and the involvement of feedback. Journal of Vision 8(5), 1-10. http://journalofvision.org/8/5/17.
  43. J van Boxtel, D Alais, C Erkelens, R van Ee (2008). The role of temporally coarse form processing during binocular rivalry. PLoS ONE, 3(1), e1429.
  44. K Allen, D Alais, S Carlile (2008). The contribution of talker characteristics and spatial location to auditory streaming. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 123, 1562-70.
  45. A Parker, D Alais (2007). A bias for looming to predominate in binocular rivalry. Vision Research 47, 2661-74.
  46. D Alais, D Melcher (2007) Strength and coherence of binocular rivalry depends on shared stimulus complexity. Vision Research, 47, 269-79.
  47. D Alais, A Parker (2006) Independent binocular rivalry processes for form and motion. Neuron 52, 911-20.
  48. J Cass, D Alais (2006) Evidence for two interacting temporal channels in human visual processing. Vision Research, 46, 2859-68.
  49. C Paffen, D Alais, F Verstraten (2006) Attention speeds binocular rivalry. Psychological Science, 17, 752-6.
  50. D Burr, D Alais (2006). Combining visual and auditory information. Progress in Brain Research, 155, 243-58.
  51. D Alais, C Morrone, D Burr (2006) Separate attentional resources for vision and audition. Proceedings of the Royal Society, Series B, 273, 1339-45.
  52. L Bowns, D Alais (2006) Large shifts in perceived motion direction reveal multiple global motion solutions. Vision Research 46, 1170-77.
  53. D Alais, J Lorenceau, R Arrighi, J Cass (2006) Contour interactions between pairs of Gabors engaged in binocular rivalry reveal a map of the association field. Vision Research 46, 1473-87.
  54. R Arrighi, D Alais, D Burr (2006) Perceptual synchrony of audio-visual streams for natural and artificial motion sequences. Journal of Vision, 6, 260-68,http://journalofvision.org/6/3/6/.
  55. J Cass, D Alais (2006). The mechanisms of collinear integration. Journal of Vision, 6, 915-22, http://journalofvision.org/6/9/5/.
  56. C Paffen, D Alais, F Verstraten (2005) Centre-surround inhibition deepens binocular rivalry suppression. Vision Research 45, 2642-9.
  57. R Arrighi, D Alais, D Burr (2005) Perceived timing of first- and second-order changes in vision and audition. Experimental Brain Research 166, 445-54.
  58. R Arrighi, D Alais, D Burr (2005) Neural latencies do not explain the auditory or the audio-visual flash-lag effect. Vision Research 45, 2917-25.
  59. D Alais, S Carlile (2005) Synchronising to real events: Subjective audiovisual alignment scales with perceived auditory depth and speed of sound. PNAS, 102, 2244-7.
  60. D Alais, F Verstraten, D Burr (2005) The motion aftereffect of transparent motion: two temporal channels account for perceived direction. Vision Research, 45, 403-12.
  61. D Li, A Freeman, D Alais (2005) Contrast sensitivity of form and motion discrimination during binocular rivalry. Vision Research, 45, 1255-63.
  62. O Carter, J Pettigrew, D Burr, D Alais, F Hasler, F Vollenweider (2004) The hallucinogenic serotonin agonist psilocybin affects high-level but not low-level motion mechanisms in humans. NeuroReport 15, 1947-1951.
  63. D Alais, D Burr (2004) No direction-specific bimodal facilitation for audiovisual motion detection. Brain Research: Cognitive Brain Research 19, 185-94.
  64. D Alais, D Burr (2004) The ventriloquist effect results from near-optimal cross-modal integration. Current Biology 14, 257-62.
  65. V Nguyen, A Freeman, D Alais (2003) Increasing depth of binocular rivalry suppression along two visual pathways. Vision Research 43, 2003-8.
  66. D Alais, D Burr (2003) The “flash-lag” effect occurs in audition and cross-modally. Current Biology 13, 1-5.
  67. D Alais, J Lorenceau (2002) Perceptual grouping in the Ternus display: Evidence for an ‘association field’ in apparent motion. Vision Research 42, 1005-1016.
  68. J Lorenceau, D Alais (2001) Form constraints in motion binding. Nature Neuroscience, 4, 745-51.
  69. D Alais, R O’Shea, C Mesana-Alais, I Wilson (2000) On binocular alternation. Perception 29, 1437-1445.
  70. D Alais, R Blake (1999) Neural strength of visual attention gauged by motion adaptation. Nature Neuroscience 2, 1015-1018.
  71. D Alais, R Blake (1999) Grouping visual features during binocular rivalry. Vision Research 39, 4341-4353.
  72. D Burke, D Alais, P Wenderoth (1999) Determinants of fusion of dichoptically presented orthogonal gratings. Perception 28, 73-88.
  73. R Blake, U Ahlström, D Alais (1999) Perceptual priming to invisible motion. Psychological Science 10, 145-150.
  74. D Alais (1999). Spatial structure from temporal change. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 3, 293.
  75. D Alais, R Blake, S Lee (1998) Visual features that vary together over time group together over space. Nature Neuroscience 1, 160-164.
  76. D Alais, M van der Smagt, A van den Berg, W van de Grind (1998) Local and global factors affecting the coherent motion of gratings presented in multiple apertures. Vision Research 38, 1581-1591.
  77. D Alais, R Blake (1998) Interactions between global motion and local binocular rivalry. Vision Research 38, 637-644.
  78. D Alais, P Wenderoth, D Burke (1997) The size and number of plaid blobs contribute to the direction perception of type II plaids. Vision Research 37, 143-150.
  79. D Alais, M van der Smagt, F Verstraten, W van de Grind (1996) Monocular mechanisms determine perceived plaid coherence. Visual Neuroscience 13, 615-626.
  80. D Alais, D Burke, P Wenderoth (1996) Further evidence for monocular determinants of perceived plaid direction. Vision Research 36, 1247-1253.
  81. D Alais, M van der Smagt, F Verstraten, W van de Grind (1995) The perceived direction of motion and motion aftereffects using textured gratings. Perception 24, 1383- 1396.
  82. D Alais, P Wenderoth, D Burke (1994) The contribution of 1-D motion mechanisms to the perceived direction of drifting plaids and their aftereffects. Vision Research 34, 1823-1834.
  83. D Burke, D Alais, P Wenderoth (1994) A role for a low-level mechanism in determining plaid coherence. Vision Research 34, 3189-3196.
  84. P Wenderoth, D Alais, D Burke, R van der Zwan (1994) The role of 'blobs' in determining perception of drifting plaids and motion aftereffects. Perception 23, 1163- 69.
  85. R van der Zwan, P Wenderoth, D Alais (1993) Reduction of pattern-induced motion aftereffect by binocular rivalry suggests the involvement of extrastriate mechanisms. Visual Neuroscience 10, 703-709.
  86. P Wenderoth, D Alais (1990) Lack of evidence for a tactual Poggendorff illusion. Perception & Psychophysics 48, 234-242.

 
 
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