Stephen Mitroff, Assistant Professor

Research Summary:
My primary research interests are in visual cognition, exploring various aspects of visual memory, attention, and perception. In my recent research with adult subjects I ask questions such as how do we track distinct objects as the same persisting individuals from one moment to the next, how do we detect visual changes, and what is the relationship between awareness and perception. Our lab also explores the benefits of video game playing on visual cognition and the various factors involved in rare target visual search. I also have a strong research interest in cognitive development and have been using various developmental paradigms to explore these same questions but from a different perspective. In collaborations with other labs at Duke, we also use cognitive neuroscience techniques as yet another tool for exploring these issues of visual cognition.

Representative Publications:   (More Publications)

1. Fleck, M. S., & Mitroff, S. R. (2007). Rare targets are rarely missed in correctable search. Psychological Science, 18, 943-947. [PDF]
2. Mitroff, S. R. & Alvarez, G. A. (2007). Space and time, not surface features, underlie object persistence. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 14, 1199-1204.
3. Mitroff, S. R., Scholl, B. J., & Noles, N. S. (2007). Object files can be purely episodic. Perception, 36, 1730-1735. [PDF]
4. Cheries, E., Mitroff, S. R., Wynn, K., & Scholl, B. J. (in press). Cohesion as a principle of object persistence in infancy.. Developmental Science.
5. Mitroff, S. R., Sobel D. M., & Gopnik, A. (2006). Reversing how to think about ambiguous figure reversals: Spontaneous alternating by uninformed observers. Perception, 35(5), 709-715.
6. Mitroff, S. R. & Scholl, B. J. (2005). Forming and updating object representations without awareness: Evidence from motion-induced blindness. Vision Research, 45(8), 961-967. [pdf]
7. Mitroff, S. R., Scholl, B. J., & Wynn, K. (2005). The relationship between object files and conscious perception. Cognition, 96(1), 67-92. [pdf]
8. Mitroff S. R., Simons, D. J., & Levin, D. T. (2004). Nothing compares 2 views: Change blindness can occur despite preserved access to the changed information. Perception & Psychophysics, 66, 1268-1281. [pdf]
9. Mitroff, S. R., Scholl, B. J., & Wynn, K. (2004). Divide and Conquer: How object files adapt when a persisting object splits into two. Psychological Science, 15(6), 420-425. [pdf]
10. Mitroff, S. R. & Scholl, B. J. (2004). Seeing the disappearance of unseen objects. Perception, 33, 1267-1273.
11. Mitroff, S. R., Simons, D. J., & Franconeri, S. L. (2002). The siren song of implicit change detection. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 28(4), 798-815. [pdf]

Lab Personnel: 
Melissa Bulkin, Lab Manager
Mathias Fleck, Graduate Student
Jeffrey Nelson, Graduate Student

Typical Courses Taught::

• Psy 92, Cognitive psychology Synopsis

• Psy 158s, Seeing and knowing (c) Synopsis