Peter Bex conducts theoretical and applied research in normally-sighted observers, in ageing observers and in observers with visual impairments, including low vision and amblyopia.

My low vision research applies behavioural research techniques, including psychophysics and gaze tracking, to understand the deficits in patients with central or peripheral visual field loss. The objective of this research program is to develop sensitive techniques for early detection and evaluation of visual impairment and to develop visual aids to facilitate visually-based behavior (such as reading, face recognition and mobility) for use by people with low vision.

Convergent behavioural and physiological studies indicate that the receptive fields of early visual mechanisms are selective for a limited range of image attributes, such as orientation and direction of movement, and that they are relatively small, responding to structure within only a very limited region of the visual field. However the visual system is required to produce functional information from natural images that extend over space or time. These tasks include the detection, recognition and movement of objects that extend far beyond the receptive fields of single units. This cannot be derived directly from such mechanisms and must be the result of combining a number of independent, local inputs across visual space. My research over the past ten years has contributed to our understanding of such initial analyzers in the visual system, but has increasingly focused on how these local analyses are assembled to support the perception of real objects and scenes.

 


Institute of Ophthalmology, University College London, 11-43 Bath Street, London EC1V 9EL

+44 207 608 4015

+44 207 608 6983

p.bex@ucl.ac.uk