Welcome to the Perception & Action lab at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. The lab is headed by Dr. Miriam Spering and is part of the Visual Cognitive Neuroscience Group within the Department of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences.

Research in the lab focuses on how the brain uses visual information to control eye movements. We use experimental tools from classical visual psychophysics to state-of-the-art eye movement recordings in healthy observers and patients.

Some of the specific research questions, which the lab is currently exploring, are: How do eye movements influence the way we perceive our visual environment? How are motion perception and eye movements learned? What is the effect of attention on eye movements?

Our basic research has many clinical applications. For instance, a type of eye movement known as smooth pursuit is used to stabilize gaze on a moving object of interest and critically assists vision. Deficits in the perception of visual motion and the tracking of moving objects with smooth pursuit eye movements have been described in many neurological, psychiatric and developmental conditions, such as Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia and strabismic amblyopia. One of the goals of our research is to assess whether training can compensate abnormalities in vision and eye movements in these patients with the ultimate goal of developing eye movement-based rehabilitation tools.

We acknowledge research funding from the following sources: NSERC Discovery Grant and Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies at UBC.