Psychology

Lianggang (Liang) Lou

 Associate Professor

 B.A., Fudan University
 M.S., Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
 Ph.D., University of California, San Diego 
 
 office: 2125 Au Sable Hall
 phone: (616) 331-2916
 email: loul@gvsu.edu
 
 Spring/Summer Office Hours
Specialization
 
Perception and Cognition
 
Courses Taught
 
PSY 101 - Introductory Psychology
PSY 300 - Research Methods in Psychology
PSY 361 - Perception
PSY 365 - Cognition
PSY 400 - Advanced Research in Psychology
PSY 492 - Advanced General Capstone
 
Current Research Interests
 
I like to explore phenomena that pose problems for mainstream theories of perception. For example, it is well known that a steady stimulus in peripheral vision will fade from awareness in a few seconds. This phenomenon, known as "Troxler fading", is commonly considered to reflect a local adaptation in early stages of visual information processing. I found, however, that the fading occurs faster for peripheral stimuli selectively attended or perceived as part of a figure in a figure-ground organization (Lou, 1999). Similar results were obtained with a negative afterimage of multiple figural components (Lou, 2001). These observations suggest an effect of attention on visual adaptation that renders the traditional distinction between sensation and perception unwarranted in some sense.  
 
Another example: The phenomenal filling-in of the physiological blind spot----a topic that spurred debates among psychologists and philosophers concerned with the neuronal correlates of phenomenal consciousness. The crucial point that I made in an empirical/phenomenological study was that a blind spot looks filled only when attention is broadly allocated to the visual field surrounding the blind spot, and is at best believed to look filled when attention is narrowly focused on it (Lou & Chen, 2003). I believe that such nuanced blind-spot phenomenology is prerequisite for any attempt to explain in neuroscientific terms why normally we are not aware of the blind spots.
 
Over the last few years, I have been interested in how oculomotor and other bodily cues influence visual perception. It is commonly known that visual object perception is mediated by both the retinal image and various cues that relate the object to the viewer, including ocular motor cues for accommodation and convergence. However, oculomotor cues seem special in that they mediate not only the perception of the distal object, but also that of the proximal image. I showed, for example, that an afterimage’s perceived angular size shrinks as the focal distance decreases, and does so largely within 1m, the effective range for accommodation and convergence (Lou, 2007). This result suggests that even in conditions where object constancy holds, there can be a difference in how the perceived object looks like at different viewing distances----a difference neglected by the mainstream theories of perception. Whether similar conclusions can be generalized to other aspects (e.g., shape and lightness) of visual perception is not clear, and will be interesting to explore.

Representative Publications
 
(Some of these papers can be downloaded for personal use. If you would like permission to use a reprint for a book or course pack, please contact the publisher)
 
Lou, L. (2008). Troxler effect with dichoptic stimulus presentations: Evidence for binocular inhibitory summation and interocular suppression. Vision Research, 48(14), 1514-1521.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.visres.2008.04.001
 
Lou, L. (2007). Apparent afterimage size, Emmert's law and oculomotor adjustments, Perception, 36, 1214-1228.

Lou, L., & Chen, J. (2003) Attention and blind-spot phenomenology, Psyche: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Consciousness, 9(2), http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/v9/psyche-9-02-lou.html
 
Lou, L. (2001). Effects of voluntary attention on structured afterimages. Perception, 30(12), 1439-1448. pdf
 
Lou, L. (1999). Selective peripheral fading: Evidence for inhibitory sensory effect of attention. Perception, 28(4), 519-526. pdf

 

Page last modified May 16, 2013