I have focused much of my research on the early cognitive processes that occur during a single eye fixation on a scene. Some of the research questions include: How our representation of a scene image changes over a single eye fixation? How does our central and peripheral visual field contribute to scene categorization? And, how is spatial attention distributed in a scene over the time-course of a fixation? These early processes are then linked to later processes that occur over multiple fixations, which are involved in understanding complex events and comprehension. These research topics include examining eye movements to determine the critical visual information that is necessary to identify an action/event in scenes images and videos. Are eye movements sensitive to the cognitive task involved in comprehending a visual narrative? And, how are comprehension, memory, and event perception influenced by the organization of a visual narrative? Critically, by better understanding the interaction between the early and late cognitive processes, we can then understand how we comprehend film and our visual world.
