Understanding slow change blindness
David Whitney, Professor
Psychology
Applications for Fall 2025 are closed for this project.
Attentive observers fail to notice otherwise obvious changes when the change takes place gradually, a phenomenon called slow change blindness. This striking inability to notice large changes raises questions about how perception is generated across time. One integration method that would plausibly lead to slow change blindness is a reliance on the recent past – a kind of “active perceptual serial dependence”. Previous work in the lab used one-shot hue reports from a large number of observers who each viewed a single trial to demonstrate serial dependence at each moment in a slow change. We concluded that active perceptual serial dependence smooths perception and yields an illusion of stability that can produce slow change blindness. Studying slow change blindness allows us to better investigate the contributions of memory, consciousness, and stimulus features to visual perception. The next steps involve understanding how mental state (such as internal/external mode) influences perception of slowly changing objects. The project will employ eye tracking and human psychophysics studies to further understand human processing of slow changes.
Role: The research apprentice will be involved in designing stimuli, running experiments, collecting data and analyzing data. Students will be trained in research methods and statistics. Students will be responsible for writing Python code and applying statistical toolboxes to analyze the data. The research apprentice will be also expected to read the relevant literature and write reports on the ongoing results of the project. The student will also meet with the supervisor weekly to discuss preliminary data and background literature, in addition to the opportunity to attend weekly lab meetings.
Most tasks and meetings will be remote, but some in-person data collection will be required.
Qualifications: Required: High motivation, interest in visual perception, basic programming skills, ability to work independently on certain projects.
Desirable but not essential: basic knowledge of Adobe Photoshop; experience with programming language Python
Day-to-day supervisor for this project: Haley Frey, Graduate Student
Hours: to be negotiated
Related website: https://whitneylab.berkeley.edu/
Social Sciences Digital Humanities and Data Science Education, Cognition & Psychology