Department of Psychology

Biography:

Keywords: auditory and visual cognition, multi-modal processing, perceptual ambiguity, environmental repetition and change, psychology and art

“Don’t you wonder sometimes / ‘Bout sound and vision?”

I received my doctorate in Auditory Cognition at the University of York, UK, and augmented the behavioral techniques I acquired there with event-related potential (ERP) methodology as a result of a postdoctoral research fellowship at the Rotman Research Institute, Toronto. I took up my first faculty position back in the UK at the University of Sussex and am happy to return to Toronto to join Ryerson in August 2008.

My core research interests centre around the perception and representation of sight and sound: how we end up with very complex phenomenology from fairly humble beginnings at the eye and the ear, how we organise our memories for such experiences, and how the sensory systems compete and collaborate with one another. My research has recently expanded into examining the links between Art and Psychology and I have recently completed work looking at iteratively copied drawing with UK artist Rachel Cohen, in addition to examining some of the interface characteristics of games such as RockBand. I am also working on a number of routes into the examination of perceptual ambiguity and how ERP might allow us some insights into the mental decisions underlying environmental resolution.

My teaching interests stem predominately from co-authoring a contemporary (and I hope reasonably priced) undergraduate textbook on Cognitive Psychology, with the second edition underway. Consequently, I am keen to convey the wonders of cognition and perception to anybody willing to listen. So if you’ve ever wondered sometimes how you are able to remember the lyrics of a David Bowie song even though you haven’t heard it for years, or, how a static collection of yellow, blue, red, white and grey squares ends up with the kinetic title of “Broadway Boogie Woogie” then you should definitely stop by for a chat or visit the H.E.A.R. lab website.

Selected Publications:

Ugland, C., Dyson, B. J. & Field, A. (in press). An ERP study of the interaction between verbal information and conditioning pathways to fear. Biological Psychology.

Sandhu, R. & Dyson, B. J. (2012). Reevaluating visual and auditory dominance through task switching costs and congruency analyses. Acta Psychologica, 140, 111-118.

Dyson, B. J. (2011). The advantage of ambiguity? Early neural responses to multi-stable percepts correlate with the degree of perceived instability. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 5, 73, 1-12.

Quinlan, P. T. & Dyson, B. J. (2008). Cognitive Psychology. Pearson: UK.

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