Dr Joseph Brooks
- Title
- Senior Lecturer in Psychology
- Location
- Dorothy Hodgkin Building : DH1.74
- Role
- Research Director
- Contact me
- By email or appointment
- Phone
- +44(0)1782 732963
- j.l.brooks@keele.ac.uk
Biography
Ph.D. (2006) University of California, Berkeley
Post-Doctoral Fellowships (2006-2012) University College London
My undergraduate degree was a double major in biological sciences and psychology at Carnegie Mellon University (Pennsylvania, USA). From there I moved west to start a PhD with Professors Stephen Palmer and Lynn Robertson at Berkeley where I worked on both visual perceptual organisation and studies of patients with hemi-spatial neglect. I moved to London with funding from the Royal Society (and later the British Academy) to do post-doctoral work in the laboratory of Prof Jon Driver at the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience in Queen Square. In 2012, I started a lectureship at the University of Kent and was Co-Director of the Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience & Cognitive Systems until I moved to Keele in 2017.
I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Association (FHEA), Fellow of the Psychonomic Society (FPsyS), and a member of the Experimental Psychology Society (EPS) and Vision Sciences Society (VSS).
Research and scholarship
My research interests include visual perception and attention and the neural processes that give rise to them. In particular, my work focuses on perceptual organisation processes such as figure-ground organisation and perceptual grouping which play a role in determining the structure, shape, and depth that we perceive in visual scenes. This work often involves the study of ambiguous images (e.g., faces/vase image) or visual illusions. I use a combination of EEG, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), psychophysics, eye movement tracking, and studies of neurological patients (e.g., hemispatial neglect and agnosia) to study these topics. An emerging strand of my work focuses on methods issues especially those related to safe and powerful EEG/ERP quantification.
Visual Perception & Attention
- How does our visual system determine whether we see ambiguous images (e.g., face or vase)?
- Why do we see visual illusions? Do different visual illusions share neural mechanisms or rely on different processes?
- What visual features and non-visual factors affect perceptual organisation and illusions?
- How does the structure of the world affect the way in which we move our attention around space?
Brain Oscillations (EEG & TMS)
- What role do oscillations in brain activity play in perception, attention, and other aspects of behaviour?
- How is communication between brain areas involved in perceptual grouping and completion?
- Can TMS be used to change brain oscillations and the behaviour in which they are involved?
Methods
- Developing algorithms to optimally counterbalance carryover effects in long experiments
- How can we safely use our data to select ROIs in EEG/ERP analyses (i.e., data driven analysis)?
Selected Publications
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2020. Breaking the circularity in circular analyses: Simulations and formal treatment of the flattened average approach. PLoS computational biology, vol. 16(11), e1008286. doi> full text>
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2020. Response dependence of reversal-related ERP components in perception of ambiguous figures. Psychophysiology, vol. 57(12), e13685. link> doi> full text>
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2020. Theta Phase-dependent Modulation of Perception by Concurrent Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation and Periodic Visual Stimulation. J Cogn Neurosci, vol. 32(6), 1142-1152. link> doi> full text>
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2019. Task Dependence of Reversal-Related ERP Components in Perception of the Necker Lattice. PERCEPTION (vol. 48, pp. 38-39). link>
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2017. Evidence for view-invariant face recognition units in unfamiliar face learning. Q J Exp Psychol (Hove), vol. 70(5), 874-889. link> doi> full text>
Full Publications List show
Journal Articles
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2020. Breaking the circularity in circular analyses: Simulations and formal treatment of the flattened average approach. PLoS computational biology, vol. 16(11), e1008286. doi> full text>
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2020. Response dependence of reversal-related ERP components in perception of ambiguous figures. Psychophysiology, vol. 57(12), e13685. link> doi> full text>
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2020. Theta Phase-dependent Modulation of Perception by Concurrent Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation and Periodic Visual Stimulation. J Cogn Neurosci, vol. 32(6), 1142-1152. link> doi> full text>
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2017. Evidence for view-invariant face recognition units in unfamiliar face learning. Q J Exp Psychol (Hove), vol. 70(5), 874-889. link> doi> full text>
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2017. Data-driven region-of-interest selection without inflating Type I error rate. Psychophysiology, vol. 54(1), 100-113. link> doi> full text>
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2016. Causal evidence that intrinsic beta-frequency is relevant for enhanced signal propagation in the motor system as shown through rhythmic TMS. Neuroimage, vol. 126, 120-130. link> doi> full text>
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2015. Training-induced recovery of low-level vision followed by mid-level perceptual improvements in developmental object and face agnosia. Dev Sci, vol. 18(1), 50-64. link> doi> full text>
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2012. Counterbalancing for serial order carryover effects in experimental condition orders. Psychol Methods, vol. 17(4), 600-614. link> doi> full text>
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2012. Preserved local but disrupted contextual figure-ground influences in an individual with abnormal function of intermediate visual areas. Neuropsychologia, vol. 50(7), 1393-1407. link> doi> full text>
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2011. Cue competition affects temporal dynamics of edge-assignment in human visual cortex. J Cogn Neurosci, vol. 23(3), 631-644. link> doi> full text>
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2010. Grouping puts figure-ground assignment in context by constraining propagation of edge assignment. Atten Percept Psychophys, vol. 72(4), 1053-1069. link> doi> full text>
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2008. Edge-region grouping in figure-ground organization and depth perception. J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform, vol. 34(6), 1353-1371. link> doi> full text>
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2008. Context affects figure-ground organization via perceptual grouping. VISUAL COGNITION, vol. 16(1), 91-95. link>
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2002. Grouping occurs both before and after constancy. Journal of Vision, vol. 2, Article 7.
Other
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2019. Task Dependence of Reversal-Related ERP Components in Perception of the Necker Lattice. PERCEPTION (vol. 48, pp. 38-39). link>
Student Project Supervision
I regularly supervise Final Year undergraduate projects, MSc dissertation projects, MSc research apprenticeships, 2nd Year undergraduate volunteers, and PhD students. Projects in my lab typically focus on:
- visual perception of shape and depth
- visually ambiguous images (e.g., faces-vase, #TheDress) and visual illusions
- control of visual attention
- neurological patient deficits in vision and attention
- electrophysiological/EEG measures of vision and attention
- developing statistical methods for EEG
I welcome enquires from prospective PhD students as well as post-doctoral scholars who want to work on these topics. I am very happy work with prospective post docs in preparing applications for independent funding (e.g., Newton Fellowships, etc.) in addition to any already-funded posts that I advertise. Please get in contact to discuss.
