Dennis Levi

Research Interests

My research focuses on the mechanisms of pattern vision, and the influence of abnormal visual development on those mechanisms.

Research Summary

Research in my lab focuses on how we perceive visual forms and patterns, and how form perception is degrade by abnormal visual experience early in life (amblyopia). Specifically, we use psychophysics, computational modelling and brain imaging (fMRI) to study the neural mechanisms of normal pattern vision in humans, and to learn how they are degraded by abnormal visual experience (amblyopia). While amblyopia is known to influence the properties of neurons in cortical area V1 recent work in our laboratory suggests that amblyopia may also result in damage to higher cortical areas.

Selected Publications

Sharma, V., Levi, D.M. & Klein, S.A. Under-counting features and missing features: evidence for a high level deficit in strabismic amblyopia. Nature Neuroscience, 3, 496-501, 2000.

Popple, A.V. & Levi, D.M. Amblyopes see true alignment where normal observers see illusory tilt. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 97, 11667-11672, 2000.

Levi, D.M. & Klein, S.A. Noise provides some new signals about the spatial vision of amblyopes. Journal of Neuroscience, 23, 2522-2566, 2003.

Li, R.W., Levi, D.M. & Klein, S.A. Perceptual learning improves efficiency by re-tuning the “template” for position discrimination. Nature Neuroscience, 7, 178-183, 2004.

Kuai, S-G., Zhang, J-Y., Klein, S.A. Levi, D.M. &  Yu, C.,  Rhythm is essential for perceptual learning of contrast discrimination. Nature Neuroscience, 8, 1497-1499, 2005.

Neri, P., Luu J.Y.  & Levi, D.M. Meaningful interactions can enhance visual discrimination of human agents. Nature Neuroscience, 9, 1186-1192, 2006.