Paul Downing

Derbyn Myfyrwyr PhD

Prosiectau PhD

My research is in the area of social perception: What are the neurocognitive mechanisms that transform visual signals into reliable, socially-relevant signals about the people around us? With my colleagues I have explored this question by applying psychophysical, fMRI, and TMS methods to study face, body, and action perception. For example, some recent and current studies in the lab examine: how visual, semantic, and motor aspects of actions are represented in the brain; how states and traits such as sex, age, weight, and emotion are inferred from the appearance of the body; how the presence of other people shapes our pattern of attention within a scene; how frontal and temporal brain regions coordinate in perception of human faces; and how body-selective regions of the temporal lobes capture our knowledge of possible human postures.

I seek skilled and motivated students with shared interests to jointly develop and carry out studies within this exciting and fast-moving area.