We are back with our second panel discussion, this time exploring another core BVI theme: “Vision in motion”. Motion and vision are tightly interlinked – would vision even exist without the need to move? Are we all motion scientists as well? Should we rebrand Bristol Vision Institute as Bristol Motion Institute? Motion unites vision researchers: think eye movements, dynamic visual scenes, autonomous systems that interact with the world, motion capture, and healthcare through rehabilitation and disease impact, to name a few themes. Not everything needs visual systems, for example hills do not have eyes, but there seems to be a strong correlation between movement and vision – which will be our main topic for this panel. To explore the topic through different viewpoints, we picked a panel of:

Casimir Ludwig, Reader in the School of Psychological Science, studies how visual information is used in the control of behaviour, as manifest in motor actions, for example eye movements. One of Casimir’s research areas is understanding the decision processes that lead to gaze shifts: every time you fixate on a region in a visual scene and take some information from it, your visual system decides about when you move on and how long you stay based on the information you acquired. His research combines eye tracking, visual psychophysics, motion capture, virtual reality, and computational modelling, leading to an expertise in modelling a diverse range of movements and linking them to vision. 

Nick Scott-Samuel, Professor of Experimental Psychology in the School of Psychological Science. Nick’s research was initially concerned with the visual perception of motion by humans, but he has become sidetracked over time by various other things, including the perception of food and drink, camouflage, visual search and the estimation of numerosity. He is one of the leads of the Camo Lab and in recent years studied several camouflage techniques that link to motion to vision, including dazzle, iridescence, and dappled light. 

Edith-Clare Hall, PhD student in the School of Engineering Mathematics and Technology and member of the Bristol Robotics Lab. She works on designing robotic upper limb orthoses (devices supporting limbs), including wearable soft robotics is aimed to tackle motor neuron diseases, e.g., ALS. Edith is a lead in Women in Robotics UK, promoting a diverse and inclusive environment within robotics. Through her knowledge in biomimetics, she brings a perspective of how the study of biological motion leads to improvements in human healthcare.

We invite everyone to participate in the discussion, indeed some of our themes will follow on from the conversation around the room from the previous panel on “Finding and hiding things”.

Painting of people sitting on chairs discussing motion Stable Diffusion 2.1