.

Dr Rob Summers BSc MSc PhD

Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Psychology
School of Life and Health Sciences
Aston University
Birmingham B4 7ET
UK

Email: R . J . Summers @ aston . ac . uk (Remove the spaces)

Career History

Rob graduated in 1997 with a BSc in Mathematics and Psychology from Keele University. He then completed an MSc in Machine Perception and Neural Computation, also at Keele, in 1998. He studied for a PhD under the supervision of Dr Mitch Thomson at Aston University and latterly at Derby University and completed his thesis, “Human sensitivity to higher-order statistical structure in natural images”, in 2005. He worked for with Dr Tim Meese on a Wellcome Trust grant studying the perception of depth in human vision until September 2007.

He is now working for Prof. Brian Roberts on a 3-year EPSRC project studying the perceptual organization of speech investigating contributions of general and speech-specific factors.

Research interests

  • Speech perception.
  • Psychophysical methods.
  • Uncertainty models.
  • Natural Image Statistics.

Other

  • Liberator – software for rapid (2AFC) experiment development using Cambridge Research Systems VSG and ViSaGe hardware.

Publications


Meese, T. S., Challinor, K. L., Summers, R. J., & Baker, D. H. (in press). Suppression pathways saturate with contrast for parallel surrounds but not for superimposed cross-oriented masks. Vision Research. doi: 10.1016/j.visres.2009.09.006

Summers, R. J., & Meese, T. S. (2009) The influence of fixation points on contrast detection and discrimination of patches of
grating: Masking and facilitation. Vision Research, 49(14), 1894-1900, doi:10.1016/j.visres.2009.04.027

Meese, T. S., & Summers, R. J. (2009). Neuronal convergence in early contrast vision: Binocular summation is followed by response nonlinearity and area summation. Journal of Vision, 9(4):7, 1-16, http://journalofvision.org/9/4/7/, doi:10.1167/9.4.7.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Thomson, M. G. A., Foster, D. H., & Summers, R. J. (2000) Human sensitivity to phase perturbations in natural images: a statistical framework. Perception, 29(9), 1057-1069.

Conference Abstracts


Roberts, B., Summers, R. J., & Bailey,  P. J. (2009) The perceptual organization of sine‐wave speech under competitive conditions. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 125(4), 2606.

Summers, R. J., Roberts, B., & Bailey,  P. J. (2009) Effects of differences in fundamental frequency on cross‐formant grouping in speech perception. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 125(4), 2605-2606.

Meese T S, Summers R J, (2008), Contrast is summed across eyes and space, and in that order" Perception 37 ECVP Abstract Supplement, page 131

Summers, R. J., Meese, T. S. & Baker, D. H. (2008) Luminance contrast is summed across eyes before space. Perception, 37, 314. Christmas AVA

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)

Summers, R. J. & Meese, T. S. (2007) The influence of fixation points on the contrast detection of patches of grating. Perception, 36, (in press) (AVA AGM, Easter 2007)

Meese, T. S., Holmes, D. J., Summers, R. J., and Wallis, S. A. (2006) Cross-orientation suppression is not scale-invariant in space or time, Perception 35,417.

Summers, R. J., and Meese, T. S., (2006) Summation for pictorial and non-pictorial routes to depth perception., Perception 35, 427.

Summers, R. J., and Meese, T. S., (2005), Summation of pictorial depth cues with motion and disparity gradients, Perception 34(Supp.), 113.

Summers, R. J., and Thomson, M. G. A. (2004) Higher-order statistical redundancy in natural images, Perception 33(Supp.), 115.

Summers, R. J., and Thomson, M. G. A. (2000) Modelling the detection of blur in natural scenes: whitened kurtosis and the rectified contrast spectrum, Perception 29(1), 16.

Summers, R. J., and Thomson, M. G. A. (1999) Nonuniform phase perturbations in natural images, Perception 28(Supp.), 127.

Last updated at 22 April 2009