Dr Ross Goutcher

My research interests lie in understanding human perception and the perceptual processes involved in decision-making. My teaching includes lectures on perceptual processing in all years, including computational approaches to perception (in PSY9AC: Cognition) and a final year elective on altered or abnormal perceptual states.

I completed my first degree in Psychology at the University of Glasgow in 2000, before obtaining an MPhil from the University of Newcastle in 2002 and a PhD from the University of Glasgow in 2005.  I have held post-doctoral positions at Glasgow Caledonian University, investigating the perception of second-order motion, and the University of St Andrews, working on statistical approaches to depth perception and stereoscopic vision. From 2006 until 2011 I held an RCUK Academic Fellowship here in Stirling, where my research concentrated on cyclopean surface perception.

If you are interested in working in my lab, or wish to apply for postgraduate study under my supervision, please contact me by e-mail

Our senses provide us with an exquisite representation of important properties of the natural environment and allow us to act, survive and thrive in the world. The apparent ease of sensory perception belies the computational complexity of the problem with which our brains are presented: how do you turn the light falling on the surface of the retina, or the sound waves vibrating tiny hairs within the cochlea into the meaningful world that appears before us? Moreover, how do we link together this representation of the world with the process of selecting from the multitude of possible actions available to us? My research focuses on addressing these questions by examining the ways in which the human visual system represents 3D structure, and by investigating the perception of statistical properties of the environment and their use in decision-making.

Perception of Cyclopean Form
The visual system is highly sensitive to the small differences that arise between the images on our two eyes due to their differing vantage points on the world.  These differences are known as binocular disparities and provide our visual system with a great deal of information about the 3D structure of our environment. My research has examined the problems facing the visual system in the measurement of these binocular disparities, and the rules used to link together multiple disparity measurements into the perception of depth-defined form.

Perceptual Decision-Making
The visual system is constantly confronted with noisy and ambiguous information. Many visual illusions show us that, given the correct configuration, our visual perception of the world can be unstable or erroneous as a result of such ambiguity. More fundamentally, the world is itself noisy and uncertain. It is prone to change and full of unpredictable occurrences. Noise in our perceptual system and the uncertainty of the world make our every day interactions with our environment more difficult. My research focuses on understanding how the visual system takes into account uncertainty and ambiguity in making decisions about potential actions, and on our understanding of the statistical properties of our environments.

Undergraduate
My teaching includes lectures on perceptual processing in all years. In first year (PSY911) I teach introductory lectures on perception and co-ordinate a lab class on visual search. My second year lectures (PSY9A4) focus on biological approaches to the study of perception (and their limitations).

In third year (PSY9AC) I give lectures on computational approaches to the study of perception. I also supervise group projects. Past group project topics include examining the effects of uncertainty on duration estimation, and examining how humans account for potential gains or losses in making decisions in duration estimation tasks.

Final year teaching includes dissertation supervision and the co-ordination of elective courses. Previous electives have looked at altered or abnormal perceptual states, and what they can tell us about perceptual processing. If you are about to enter your final undergraduate year and are interested in completing your dissertation under my supervision, please feel free to contact me by email. I am willing to supervise any dissertation examining perception or decision-making, and am especially keen to work with students who wish to study perceptual decision-making in the context of sports performance.

Postgraduate
If you are interested in completing an MSc or PhD in my lab, please contact me by email as I am always happy to talk to potential students. 

Goutcher, R. & Hibbard, P.B. (2010). Evidence for relative disparity matching in the perception of an ambiguous stereogram. Journal of Vision, 10 (12), 35.

Goutcher, R. & Loffler, G. (2009). Motion transparency from opposing luminance-defined and contrast-defined gratings. Vision Research, 49, 660-670.

Landy, M. S., Goutcher, R., Trommershäuser, J., & Mamassian, P. (2007). Visual estimation under risk. Journal of Vision, 7(6):4, 1-15.

Goutcher, R. & Mamassian, P. (2006). Temporal dynamics of stereo correspondence bi-stability, Vision Research, 46, 3575-3585.

Mamassian, P. & Goutcher, R. (2005). Temporal dynamics in bistable perception. Journal of Vision, 5, 361-375.

Goutcher, R. & Mamassian, P. (2005). Selective biasing of stereo correspondence matching in an ambiguous stereogram. Vision Research, 45, 469-483.

Mamassian, P. & Goutcher, R. (2001). Prior knowledge on the illumination position. Cognition, 81, B1-B9.