Stephen R Mitroff, Assistant Professor

Research Summary:
My research interests lie in visual perception, attention, and memory and I explore these topics along a number of fronts. One line of research is linked by a common focus on the nature of persisting object representations - how we perceive and represent visual information as the same objects over time and motion. Coherent visual experience requires first segmenting the incoming visual information into objects (i.e. forming discrete representations) and then binding successive views of the world together into representations of persisting objects. I have explored how such processing occurs using both infant cognition and adult cognition techiniques. A second line of my research explores various influences on visual search - how we find a target amongst a set of distractors. This research is based upon how baggage screeners, radiologists, and military personnel conduct real-world visual searches and has the goal of directly informing such searches. We have explored aspects of the search process itself (e.g., how often targets occur and whether one or more targets can occur in the same search array) and aspects of the searchers (i.e., are some individuals better visual searchers than others and if so how can we identify them and make them even better?). Another thread of my research program is focused on the effects of prior experiences and individual differences on the malleability of visual cognition. We explore how certain activities, traits, personalities, and predalictions can affect visual and attentional abilities. For example, we work with Nike to look at the effects of visual training and the Army and the Department of Homeland Security to look at how various groups of individuals perform differently on basic visual and attentional tasks.

Specialties:

Cognition and Cognitive Neuroscience
Developmental Psychology

Representative Publications:   (More Publications)   (search)

1. Fleck, M. S., Samei, E., & Mitroff, S. R. (2010). Generalized ‘satisfaction of search’: Adverse influences on dual-target search accuracy.. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 16, 60-71.
2. Clark, K., Fleck, M. S., & Mitroff, S. R. (2011). Enhanced change detection performance reveals improved strategy use in avid action video game players. Acta Psychologica, 136, 67-72.
3. Fleck, M. S., & Mitroff, S. R. (2007). Rare targets are rarely missed in correctable search. Psychological Science, 18, 943-947. [PDF]
4. Donohue, S. E., Woldorff, M. G., & Mitroff, S. R. (2010). Multisensory benefits of playing video games. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 72, 1120-1129.
5. Jordan, K. E., Clark, K., & Mitroff, S. R. (2010). See an object, hear an object file: Object correspondence transcends sensory modality. Visual Cognition, 18, 492-503.
6. Costello, M. C., Madden, D. J., Shepler, A. M., Mitroff, S. R., & Leber, A. B. (2010). Age-related preservation of top-down control over distraction in visual search. Experimental Aging Research, 36(3), 249-272.
7. Costello, M. C., Madden, D. J., Mitroff, S. R., & Whiting, W. L. (2010). Age-related decline of visual processing components in change detection. Psychology & Aging, 25(2), 256-268.
8. Wang, S., & Mitroff, S. R. (2009). Preserved visual representations despite change blindness in infants.. Developmental Science.
9. Mitroff, S. R., Arita, J. A., & Fleck, M. S. (2009). Staying in bounds: Contextual constraints on object file coherence.. Visual Cognition, 17, 195-211.
10. Mitroff, S. R. & Alvarez, G. A. (2007). Space and time, not surface features, underlie object persistence. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 14, 1199-1204.
11. 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]
12. Mitroff, S. R., Scholl, B. J., & Wynn, K. (2005). The relationship between object files and conscious perception. Cognition, 96(1), 67-92. [pdf]
13. 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]
14. 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]
15. 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]
16. Mitroff, S. R. & Scholl, B. J. (2004). Seeing the disappearance of unseen objects. Perception, 33, 1267-1273.

Typical Courses Taught::

• Psy 92, Cognitive psychology Synopsis

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

Current Ph.D. Students  

• Stephen H. Adamo  
• Kait Clark  

Postdocs Mentored

• Adam T Biggs (2011 - present)  
• L. Gregory Appelbaum (2009 - 2011)  
• Matthew S. Cain (2009 - present)