San Francisco, CA – May 10, 2024 – The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute (SKERI) is proud to announce its extensive participation in the 24th Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), held from May 17 to May 22, 2024. This leading conference, taking place in St. Pete Beach, Florida, features a diverse array of presentations from SKERI scientists, highlighting cutting-edge research in vision science.
On May 17, Dr. Santani Teng speaks in the symposium "Acoustic Glimpses: The Accumulation of Perceptual Information in Blind Echolocators," exploring how individuals who are blind use echolocation to gather perceptual information.
The following day, May 18, Arshil Patel presents his work with Drs. Giovanni Fusco and Teng as a poster titled "Sensorimotor Dynamics of Echoacoustic Target Acquisition in Blind Humans."
On the same day, Dr. Christopher Tyler presents his research poster "Analysis of the ERG Off-response," while Dr. Christian B. Sinnott presents his poster with Dr. Paul MacNeilage of University Nevada, Reno on "Natural Heading Statistics Over 42 Hours of Natural Activity: Observations and Implications of Bayesian Modeling."
On May 19, Dr. Lora Likova presents a talk about her work with Dr. Tyler, Zhangziyi Zhou, and Michael Liang on "Training-Induced Functional Homogenization in the Occipitotemporal Cortex: Differential Cross-Modal Mechanisms in Blindness vs Severe Low Vision." SKERI researchers also continue their impressive contributions with several poster presentations:
- Arvind Chandna, Stephen Heinen, Scott Watamaniuk, and Devashish Singh will present "A Virtual Target Controls Fixation Better Than a Remembered Target."
- Chuan Hou and Zhangziyi Zhou will present "Visual Uncertainty in Binocular Rivalry."
- Santani Teng, Radoslaw Cichy, Dimitios Pantazis, and Aude Oliva will present "Distinct Tactile and Visual Brain Responses to Alphabetic Letters Converge to Shared Representations in Blind and Sighted Readers.”
On May 21, Dr. Haydée Guadalupe García-Lázaro presents a talk on her work with Pushpita Bhattacharyya, Brendyn Chaoo, and Dr. Santani Teng will hold a talk on "Perceptual Mechanisms Underlying Human Click-Based Echolocation." The presentations continue with a series of posters:
- Dr. Adrien Chopin, Martin Szinte, Uriel Lascombes, Yasha Sheynin, Dennis M. Levi, and Michael A. Silver will present "Modeling Retinotopic Maps in Amblyopia Reveals Cortical Reorganization Across the Visual Hierarchy."
- Dr. Preeti Verghese, Adrien Chopin, Aidan Gauper, Ruhika Nandy, Angela Gomez Tomas, and Dennis M. Levi will present "Interocular Contrast Impression Partially Accounts for Impaired Stereopsis in the Central Visual Field of Individuals with and without Amblyopia."
- Dr. Adrien Chopin, Diana Rdeini, Catherine Agathos, Chiara Ciucci, Yuling Wang, Valerie Parmentier, Denis Sheynikhovich, and Angelo Arleo will present "Unraveling the Impact of Stereoscopic Vision on Daily Tasks in Younger and Older Adults."
Finally, on May 22, Drs Stephen Heinen and Arvind Chandna, with Devashish Singh, and Dr. Scott Watamaniuk present "A Covered Eye Follows a Target on a Tangent Screen But Doesn't Point to It.”
Additionally, we are proud to announce that leading up to the conference Dr. Christian Sinnott, a postdoctoral fellow in the Eye-Head Movement Lab was selected for the Vision Sciences Society's Student-Postdoc Advisory Committee (SPC) and him and Dr. Haydée García-Lázaro, a postdoctoral fellow in the Teng Lab, received the NEI Travel Award and the Elsevier Vision Research Travel Award, respectively, to attend the VSS Conference.
SKERI is excited to contribute to the Vision Sciences Society’s annual meeting and to share these innovative research findings with the broader vision science community. For more information about the conference, visit www.visionsciences.org.