Cognitive Psychology

Helene Intraub

		Professor Ph.D., Brandeis University, 1978 Research Interests Recent Publications website Vita - pdf document intraub@udel.edu Office: 229 Wolf Hall (302) 831-8012 (302) 831-3645 -fax Lab: (302) 831-8181 Preferred contact method - email

Research Interests

Spatial representation (visual and haptic), scene perception, and memory.

Research Summary:

Viewers perceive their surroundings by making ballistic eye movements (called saccades) as rapidly as 3 times per second. Yet, these discrete glimpses of the world somehow yield a seamless perceptual experience. What does the viewer extract from each glimpse? How does it become integrated to yield a coherent representation? Why do we sometimes misremember what we've seen? In my lab we approach these questions in a variety of ways. We present photographs at high speeds to test scene perception and memory. We study memory distortions and perceptual illusions because such "breakdowns" provide important insights into the nature of cognitive processes.

For example, viewers frequently remember seeing information from just outside the boundaries of a view -- an area they've never seen! We've found that this anticipatory "supplement" to scene memory also occurs following haptic exploration of real scenes studied by blindfolded-subjects, and a deaf and blind observer. We are attempting to determine the factors that constrain anticipatory spatial representation so there is just enough predicted layout to enhance comprehension, but not so much that memory becomes dangerously unreliable. Other projects focus on memory for movement, and for occluded objects, and the effect of action plans on mental representation.

Recent Publications

Intraub, H. & Dickinson, C. A. (in press). False memory 1/20th of a second later: What the early onset of boundary extension reveals about perception. Psychological Science.

Intraub, H., Daniels, K. K., Horowitz, T.S., & Wolfe, J.M. (in press). Looking at scenes while searching for numbers: Dividing attention multiplies space, Perception & Psychophysics.

Dickinson, C. A., & Intraub, H. (in press). Transsaccadic representation of layout: What is the time course of boundary extension? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance.

Park, S., Intraub, H., Yi, D-J., Widders, D., & Chun, M. M. (2007).  Beyond the Edges of a View: Boundary Extension in Human Scene-Selective Visual Cortex, Neuron, 54, 335-342. 

Intraub, H. (2007). Scene perception: The world through a window. In M. A. Peterson, B. Gillam, & H. A. Sedgwick (Eds.), In The Mind's Eye: Julian Hochberg on the Perception of Pictures Films, and the World.  (pp. 454-466). New York: Oxford University Press.

Quinn, P. C., & Intraub, H. (2007). Perceiving "outside the box" occurs early in development: Evidence for boundary extension in 3- to 7-month-old infants. Child Development, 78, 324-334.

Intraub, H., Hoffman, J.E., Wetherhold, C. J., Stoehs S. (2006). More than meets the eye: The effect of planned fixations on scene representation. Perception and Psychophysics, 5, 759-769.

Daniels, K.K. & Intraub, H. (2006). The shape of a view: Are rectilinear views necessary to elicit boundary extension? Visual Cognition, 14, 129-149.

Intraub, H. (2004). Anticipatory spatial representation in a deaf and blind observer, Cognition. 94, 19-37.

Gottesman, C.V. & Intraub, H. (2003). Constraints on spatial extrapolation in the mental representation of scenes: View-boundaries versus object-boundaries, Visual Cognition, 10, 875 - 893.

Gottesman, C.V. & Intraub, H. (2002).  Surface construal and the mental representation of scenes.  Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 28, 1-11.

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