Prof Tim S Meese HNC BSc PhD

Career History

Born in 1964, Tim had a brief career as a telecommunications engineer with British Telecom, then graduated from the University of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in 1989 with a first class joint honours degree in Computer Science and Psychology. He studied for a PhD under the supervision of Mark Georgeson at the University of Bristol and completed his thesis entitled 'Feature Coding in Human Pattern Vision' in 1993. He then worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham for three years investigating optic flow and complex motion with Mike Harris. He took up an appointment at the Department of Vision Sciences as a Lecturer in 1996, was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2003, Reader in 2008 and Professor in 2011. He is the Chairman of the executive committee of the AVA  and the principal organizer of the AVA Christmas Meeting since 1996, often held at Aston University. He is one of two chief editors for the journals Perception and i-Perception and has around 50 full publications. He has held funding from The Wellcome Trust, The Leverhulme Trust, BBSRC and EPSRC.

Postgraduate Positions Available

We have no current funding but if you are interested in doing a PhD in my laboratory, please send me your CV.

Teaching Responsibilities

Second year undergraduate module leader: Vision Science and Research Methods
Ophthalmic doctorate module contributor: Advanced Visual Science

Research Interests

• Spatial vision
• Contrast gain control
• Binocular vision
• Depth perception
• Psychophysical methods
• Complex motion and optic flow

Teaching Resources (for UG and PG students)

Meese, T. S. (2002) Spatial Vision in Signals and Perception: The Fundamentals of Human Sensation. (Ed. David Roberts), Palgrave, Macmillan: New York. pp 171-183.

Downloads for the original and advanced versions of the above article are available below.

Introduction to spatial vision I (Spatial vision tutorial) DOWNLOAD
Introduction to spatial vision II (Filtering & spatial vision tutorial; updated Feb 2009) DOWNLOAD

The following three powerpoint presentations provide tutorial introduction to some contemporary issues in vision science. They should run on a PC, but are probably best suited to a MAC.

Tutorial 1: Masking and suppression DOWNLOAD
Tutorial 2: Binocular summation and interocular suppression DOWNLOAD
Tutorial 3: Spatial summation (introduced via crowding) DOWNLOAD

Some Vision Links

Students

A dictionary of vision (unsure of your terminology?)
Anatomy and physiology (from the Schiller lab)
Anatomy and physiology (David Hubel’s web book)
Archimedes lab (some visual illusions)
Basics (by John Krantz)
Blind spot assessment, and others (Schieber’s Demos/Expts)
Colour vision (from the Neitz lab)
Gabori attack (measure your own contrast sensitivity function)
Illusion works (more illusions and explanations)
Motion perception (tutorials and Demos by George Mather)
The eye page (by Christopher Tyler)
The joy of visual perception (a web book by Peter Kaiser)
Vision demos etc (from Project Lite)
Visual perception (undergraduate tutorials and demos from Tutis Vilis)
What animals see (well, maybe…)

General

AVA (once known as the Applied Vision Association)
ViperLib (a useful library of vision-related images)

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Quick links to vision-related journals

Current Biology
European Journal of Neuroscience
Journal of Neuroscience
Journal of Neurophysiology
Journal of the Optical Society of America A
Journal of Vision
Nature Neuroscience
Neuroscience
Perception
Attention Perception & Psychophysics
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA
Proceedings of the Royal Society B
Spatial Vision
Trends in Neuroscience
Visual Neuroscience
Vision Research

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Collaborators

Steve Anderson
Gareth Barnes
Tom Freeman
Mark Georgeson
Mike Harris
Robert Hess
Ian Holliday
Kathy Mullen
Tom Troscianko

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Tim’s Research Laboratories

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The Team (Past & Present)

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Research funding

• £648,319. Meese & Georgeson (2009). EPSRC project grant: The spatial integration and segmentation of luminance contrast in human spatial vision.
• £354,219. Georgeson & Meese (2009). BBSRC project grant: A multi-scle model of binocular fusion in the human visual system.
  
• £236,060. Meese & Georgeson (2003). EPSRC project grant: Suppression and summation for contrast gain control in human vision.
• £134,175: Meese (2003). Wellcome Trust project grant: Perception of depth in human vision: a signal processing framework for cue combination.
• £13,489: Meese (2001). Leverhulme Trust pilot grant: Perception of depth in human vision: Combining pictorial depth cues.
• £51,233: Meese (1999). EPSRC project grant: A nonlinear model of spatial filter binding for edge detection in human vision.
• £9,000: Meese (1998). BBSRC research committee studentship: A performance-based approach to spatial filter combination in human vision.
• £11,420: Meese & Holliday (1997). Wellcome Trust pilot grant: Cortical oscillators and perceptual segmentation and integration in human vision.
• £118,416: Georgeson & Meese (1997). BBSRC project grant: Cue combination, spatial integration and binocular fusion in human vision.

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Publications

Research papers

• Meese, T. S., Smith, V. & Harris, M. G. (1995) Induced motion may account for the illusory transformation of optic flow fields found by Duffy and Wurtz. Vision Research, 35, 981-984. DOWNLOAD
• Meese, T. S., Harris, M. G. & Freeman, T. C. A. (1995) Speed gradients and the perception of surface slant: analysis is two dimensional not one dimensional. Vision Research, 35, 2879-2888. DOWNLOAD
• Meese, T. S. & Freeman, T. C. A. (1995) Edge computation in human vision: anisotropy in the combining of oriented filters. Perception, 24, 603-622. DOWNLOAD
• Meese, T. S. (1995) Phase-reversal discrimination in one and two dimensions: Performance is limited by spatial repetition, not spatial frequency content. Vision Research, 35, 2157-2167. DOWNLOAD
• Meese, T. S. (1995) Using the standard staircase to measure the point of subjective equality: A guide based on computer simulations. Perception and Psychophysics, 57, 267-281.
• Georgeson, M. A. & Meese, T. S. (1996). Perceived structure of plaids implies variable combination of oriented filters in edge-finding. In Rogowitz, B. E. and Allebach, J. P. (Eds.) Human Vision and Electronic Imaging, Proc. SPIE, 2657, 175-189.
• Meese, T. S. & Georgeson, M. A. (1996a) Spatial filter combination in human pattern vision: Channel interactions revealed by adaptation. Perception,25, 255-277. DOWNLOAD
• Meese, T. S. & Georgeson, M. A. (1996b) The tilt aftereffect in plaids and gratings: Channel codes, local signs and 'patchwise' transforms. Vision Research, 36, 1421-1437. DOWNLOAD
• Freeman, T. C. A., Harris, M. G. & Meese, T. S. (1996) On the relationship between deformation and perceived surface slant. Vision Research, 36, 317-322. DOWNLOAD
• Georgeson, M. A. & Meese, T. S. (1997) Perception of stationary plaids: The role of spatial filters in edge analysis. Vision Research, 37, 3255-3271. DOWNLOAD
• Meese, T. S. & Harris, M. G. (1997) Computation of surface slant from optic flow: Orthogonal components of speed gradient can be combined. Vision Research. 37, 2369-2379. DOWNLOAD
• Georgeson, M. A. & Meese, T. S. (1999) Adaptive filtering in spatial vision: Evidence from feature marking in plaids. Perception, 28, 687-702. DOWNLOAD
• Meese, T. S. (1999) A model of human pattern perception: Association fields for adaptive spatial filters. Spatial Vision, 12, 363-394.
• Meese, T. S. & Williams, C. B. (2000) Probability summation for multiple patches of luminance modulation. Vision Research, 40, 2101-2113. DOWNLOAD
• Meese, T. S. & Harris, M. G. H. (2001a) Independent detectors for expansion and rotation, and for orthogonal components of deformation. Perception, 30, 1189-1202. DOWNLOAD
• Meese, T. S. & Harris, M. G. H. (2001b) Broad direction bandwidths for complex motion mechanisms. Vision Research, 41, 1901-1914. DOWNLOAD
• Meese, T. S., Hess, R. F. & Williams, C. B. W. (2001) Spatial coherence does not affect contrast discrimination for multiple Gabor stimuli. Perception, 30, 1411-1422. DOWNLOAD
• Meese, T. S. & Holmes, D. J. (2002) Adaptation and gain pool summation: Alternative models and masking data. Vision Research, 42,1113-1125. DOWNLOAD
• Meese, T. S. & Anderson, S. J. (2002) Spiral mechanisms are required to account for summation of complex motion components. Vision Research, 42,1073-1080. DOWNLOAD
• Meese, T. S. & Holmes, D. J. (2004) Performance data indicate summation for pictorial depth-cues in slanted surfaces. Spatial Vision, 17, 127-151. DOWNLOAD
• Meese, T. S. & Hess, R. F. (2004) Low spatial frequencies are suppressively masked across spatial scale, orientation, field position, and eye of origin. Journal of Vision, 4, 843-859. DOWNLOAD
• Meese, T. S. (2004) Area summation and masking. Journal of Vision, 4, 930-943. DOWNLOAD
• Holmes, D. J. & Meese, T. S. (2004) Grating and plaid masks indicate linear summation in a contrast gain pool. Journal of Vision, 4, 1080-1089. DOWNLOAD
• Meese, T. S. & Georgeson, M. A. (2005) Carving up the patchwise transform: Towards a filter combination model for spatial vision. Advances in Psychology Research,Volume 34, pp 51-88, Nova Science Publishers, New York. DOWNLOAD
• Meese, T. S. & Hess, R. F. (2005) Interocular suppression is gated by interocular feature matching. Vision Research, 45, 9-15. DOWNLOAD
• Holliday, I. & Meese, T. S. (2005) Neuromagnetic evoked responses to complex motion are greatest for expansion International Journal of Psychophysiology, 55, 145-157. DOWNLOAD
• Meese, T. S., Hess, R. F., & Williams C. B. W. (2005) Size matters, but not for everyone: Individual differences for contrast discrimination. Journal of Vision, 5, 928-947 DOWNLOAD
• Georgeson, M. A. & Meese, T. S. (2006) Fixed or variable noise in contrast discrimination? The jury’s still out… Vision Research, 46, 4294-4303. DOWNLOAD
• Meese, T. S., Georgeson, M. A. & Baker, D. H. (2006) Binocular contrast vision at and above threshold. Journal of Vision, 6, 1224-1243. DOWNLOAD
• Meese, T. S. & Holmes, D. J. (2007) Spatial and temporal dependencies of cross-orientation suppression in human vision. Proc Roy Soc B. 274, 127-136. DOWNLOAD
• Meese, T. S., Summers, R. J., Holmes, D. J. & Wallis, S. A. (2007) Contextual modulation involves suppression and facilitation from the centre and the surround. Journal of Vision, 7(4):7, 1-21 doi:10.1167/7.4.7. DOWNLOAD
• Meese, T.S., Holmes, D. J. & Challinor, K. L. (2007) Remote facilitation in the Fourier domain. Vision Research, 47, 1112-1119. DOWNLOAD
• Baker, D. H., Meese, T. S. & Summers, R. J. (2007) Psychophysical evidence for two routes to suppression before binocular summation of signals in human vision. Neuroscience, 146,435-448. DOWNLOAD
• Meese, T. S. & Hess, R. F. (2007) Anisotropy for spatial summation of elongated patches of grating: A tale of two tails. Vision Research, 47, 1880-1892. DOWNLOAD
• Baker, D. H., Meese, T. S. & Georgeson, M. A. (2007) Binocular interaction: Contrast matching and contrast discrimination are predicted by the same model. Spatial Vision, 20, 397-413. DOWNLOAD
• Baker, D. H., Meese, T. S., Mansouri, B. & Hess, R. F. (2007) Binocular summation of contrast remains intact in Strabismic amblyopia. Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science, 48(11), 5332-5338. DOWNLOAD
• Meese, T. S. & Summers, R. J. (2007) Area summation in human vision at and above detection threshold. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 274, 2891-2900. DOWNLOAD
• Baker, D. H. & Meese, T. S. (2007) Binocular contrast interactions; Dichoptic masking is not a single process. Vision Research, 47, 3096-3107. DOWNLOAD
• Baker, D. H. Meese, T. S. & Hess, R. F. (2008) Contrast masking in strabismic amblyopia: Attenuation, noise, interocular suppression and binocular summation. Vision Research, 48, 1625-1640. DOWNLOAD
• Meese,  T. S., Challinor , K. L. & Summers,  R. J. (2008). A common contrast-pooling rule for suppression within and between the eyes. Visual Neuroscience,  25, 585-601. DOWNLOAD
  
• Holliday, I. E & Meese, T. S (2008) Optic flow in human vision: MEG reveals a foveo-fugal bias in V1, specialization for spiral-space in hMSTs, and global motion sensitivity in the IPS. Journal of Vision, 8(10):17, 1-24. DOWNLOAD
• Meese, T. S. & Summers, R. J. (2009) Neuronal convergence in early contrast vision: Binocular summation is followed by response nonlinearity and linear area summation. Journal of Vision, 9(4):7, 1-16. DOWNLOAD
  
• Meese, T. S. & Baker, D. H. (2009) Cross-orientation masking is speed invariant between ocular pathways but speed dependent within them. Journal of Vision, 9(5):2, 1-15. DOWNLOAD 
• Summers, R. J. & Meese, T. S. (2009) The influence of fixation points on the contrast detection of patches of grating: Masking and facilitation. Vision Research, 49, 1894-1900. DOWNLOAD 
• Meese, T. S., Challinor, K. L., Summers, R. J. & Baker, D. H. (2009) Suppression pathways saturate with contrast for parallel surrounds but not for superimposed cross-oriented masks. Vision Research, 49, 2927-2935. DOWNLOAD
• Meese, T. S. (2010) Spatially extensive summation of contrast-energy is revealed by contrast detection of micro-pattern textures. Journal of Vision, 10(8):14, 1-21. DOWNLOAD 
• Meese, T. S. & Holmes, D. J. (2010) Orientation masking and cross-orientation suppression (XOS): Implications for estimates of channel bandwidth. Journal of Vision. 10(12):9, 1-20.  DOWNLOAD 
• Meese, T. S. & Baker, D. H. (2011) Contrast summation across eyes and space is revealed along the entire dipper function by a 'Swiss cheese' stimulus. Journal of Vision. 11(1):23, 1-23. DOWNLOAD
• Meese, T. S. & Baker, D. H. (2011) A re-evaluation of achromatic spatiotemporal mechanisms: Non-oriented filters are monocular and adaptable. i-Perception, 2, 159-182. DOWNLOAD
• Baker, D. H. & Meese, T. S. (2011) Contrast integration over area is extensive: A three-stage model of spatial summation. Journal of Vision. 11(14):14, 1-16. DOWNLOAD
  

Work in progress

• Summers, R. J. & Meese, T. S. (under revision) Estimating the 2AFC psychometric function: Effects of lapsing, psychophysical procedure and method of curve-fitting. DOWNLOAD
• Meese, T. S. & Summers, R. J. (under review) Theory and data for area summation of contrast using interleaved and blocked designs: Evidence favours linear pooling. 
• Baldwin, A. S., Meese, T. S. & Baker, D. H. (in prep) Retinal inhomogeneity is modelled by an attenuation surface with the shape of a witch's hat.

Other

• Meese, T. S. (1998) Indirect Perception. Irvin Rock. BMVA newsletter.
• Meese, T. S. (1999) Visual Perception: A Clinical Orientation. Steven H. Schwartz. Ophthalmic & Physiological Optics.18, 548. (book review)
• Meese, T. S. (1999) The Motion Aftereffect: A modern Perspective. Mather, G., Verstraten, F. & Anstis, S. (Eds) Perception, 28,927-928. (book review)
• Meese, T. S. (2002) Spatial Vision in Signals and Perception: The Fundamentals of Human Sensation. (Ed. David Roberts), Palgrave, Macmillan: New York. pp 171-183. SKIP BACK TO DOWNLOAD
• Meese, T. S. (2007) Basic Vision: An introduction to visual perception. Perception, 36, 160-161. (book review) DOWNLOAD
• Troscianko, T., Thompson , P. & Meese, T. (2010). Welcome to the first issue of the new journal i-Perception. (editorial announcement) i-Perception, 1, 1-2. GO TO JOURNAL FOR DOWNLOAD
  

• Meese, T. S. (2010) Not last, nearly last, almost last, and last but not least. (announcement) Perception, 39, 588-589.

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Recent conference presentations

• Meese, T. S. (2007) Human vision sums luminance contrast over area at detection threshold and above. Perception, 36, 309. (AVA Xmas meeting 2006) DOWNLOAD
• Baker, D. H., Meese, T. S., Mansouri, B. & Hess, R. F. (2007) Monoptic, dichoptic and binocular masking in strabismic amblyopia. Perception, 36, 302. (AVA Xmas meeting 2006) DOWNLOAD
• Summers, R. J. & Meese, T. S. (2007) Estimating the 2AFC psychometric function: effects of lapsing, psychophysical procedure and method of curve-fitting. Perception, 36, 310. (AVA Xmas meeting 2006) DOWNLOAD
• Medina, J, Meese, T. S. & Mullen, K (2007) Cross-orientation masking in the red-green isoluminant and luminance systems. Journal of Vision, 7 (9), 257a, Abstract 257 (VSS).
• Baker, D. H., Meese, T. S. & Patryas, L. (2007) Binocular summation is more tightly tuned to spatial frequency, orientation and spatial phase than interocular suppression. Perception, 36, (in press) (AVA AGM, Easter 2007)
• Summers, R. J. & Meese, T. S. (2007) The influence of fixation points on eth contrast detection of patches of grating. Perception, 36, (in press) (AVA AGM, Easter 2007)
• Challinor, K. L., Meese, T. S. & Summers, R. J., Jagatia, S. P. & Cooper, M. A. (2007) Contrast transduction within suppressive pathways is almost linear for monoptic, dichoptic and binocular cross-channel masking. Perception, 36, (in press) (AVA AGM, Easter 2007)
• Summers, R. J. & Meese, T. S. (2007) Area summation is linear but the contrast transducer is nonlinear: Models of summation and uncertainty and evidence from the psychometric function. Perception, 36 supp, 5. (ECVP)
• Meese, T. S. & Summers, R. J. (2007) Area summation of contrast extends over the entire dipper function. Perception, 36 supp, 5-6. (ECVP)
• Challinor, K. L., Meese, T. S. & Summers, R. J. (2007) Surround suppression saturates, cross-orientation suppression does not. Perception, 36 supp, 38. (ECVP)
• Baker, D. H., Meese, T. S., Patel, K. & Sarwar, W. (2007) Interocular suppression is scale invariant, but ipsiocular suppression is weighted by flicker speed. Perception, 36 supp, 60. (ECVP)
• Georgeson, M. A. & Meese, T. S. (2007) Binocular combination at threshold: Temporal filtering and summation of signals in separate ON and OFF channels. Perception, 36 supp, 60. (ECVP)
• Troscianko, T., Gregory, L., Hawker, K., Bhatt, A., Porter, G., Lovell, G. & Meese, T. (2008) The big, the bad, and the ugly: an investigation into the effect of video screen size on visual cognition. Perception, 37, 312. Christmas AVA. DOWNLOAD
• Challinor, K. L., Meese, T. S. & Holmes, D. J. (2008) A two-sage process for masking: Linear suppression is more broadly tuned than super-suppression. Perception, 37, 313. Christmas AVA. DOWNLOAD
• Summers, R. J., Meese, T. S. & Baker, D. H. (2008) Luminance contrast is summed across eyes before space. Perception, 37, 314. Christmas AVA. DOWNLOAD
• Meese, T. S. & Summers, R. J. (2008) Contrast is summed across eyes and space, and in that order. Perception, 37 supp. 131. (ECVP, Netherlands)
• Gheiratmand, M., Meese, T. S., & Mullen, K. T. (2009). Cross orientation masking in color vision: Cortical processing assessed with dichoptic presentation. Journal of Vision, 9(14):84, 84a, http://journalofvision.org/9/14/84/, doi:10.1167/9.14.84.
• Meese, T. S., Georgeson, M. A., Baker, D. H., Holmes, D. J., Challinor, K. L. & Summers, R. J. (2009). Suppression and summation in contrast gain control for human vision. Perception, 38, 627. (AVA AGM, UK)
• Meese, T. S. (2009) Short- and long-range linear summation of contrast in central vision: 2 and ≥16 cycles respectively. Perception, 38 supp, 179. (ECVP, Germany)
• Georgeson, M. A. & Meese, T. S. (2009) How many paths to awareness in binocular vision? Perception, 38 supp, 110 (ECVP, Germany)
  
• Georgeson, M. A., Meese, T. S. & Baker, D. H. (2010) Detecting contrast differences in binocular and dichoptic vision: we use monocular or binocular channels, whichever gives the MAX response. Journal of Vision. (VSS, USA)
• Baker, D. H. & Meese, T. S. (2010) Area summation of contrast is scale invariant and occurs over at least 8 carrier cycles Perception, 39, 273-274. (AVA Christmas meeting, 2009, UK)
• Baldwin, A. S., Meese, T. S. & Baker, D. H. (2010) Loss of contrast sensitivity at 4 c/deg depends on eccentricity and meridian but not grating orientation for the central 9 deg of the visual field. Perception. (AVA AGM, UK)
• Baker, D. H., Georgeson, M. A., Wallis, S. A. & Meese, T. S. (2010) Difference between target and background luminance determines the rule for binocular combination. Perception. (AVA AGM, UK)
• Mullen, K. T., Gheiratmand, M. & Meese, T. S. (2010). Evidence for isotropic and orientation tuned detectors in red-green colour vision from subthreshold summation experiments. Perception. (ECVP, Switzerland).
• Meese, T. S. & Baker, D. H. (2010) Summation and suppression of luminance contrast across eyes, space, time and orientation: The equation of the visual brain. Perception. (ECVP, Switzerland).
• Baker, D. H. & Meese, T. S. & Georgeson, M. A. (2010) ‘Dilution masking’, negative d-prime and non-monotonic psychometric functions for eyes, space and time. Perception. (ECVP, Switzerland).
• Baldwin, A. S. & Meese, T. S. (2010) A new approach to investigating the contrast sensitivity to contour integration in the fovea. Perception. (ECVP, Switzerland).
• Baldwin, A. S., Meese, T. S. & Baker, D. H. (2011) Retinal inhomogeneity and the witch's hat: Contrast sensitivity declines as a bi-linear function of eccentricity in each direction Perception (in press). (Christmas AVA, Paris)
• Baker, D. H. & Meese, T. S. (2011) Varying extrinsic uncertainty affects the slope and position of the psychometric function for contrast detection and contrast discrimination. Perception (in press). (Christmas AVA, Paris)

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