Prof. Dr. Assist. Support to Prof. Dr. Ahu Gökçe from TUBITAK ARDEB 3501 Career Program

In our visual world, there are objects that stand out from their surroundings and have extreme value in terms of their characteristics. For example, a tumor on a chest X-ray, a knife in hand luggage, animals that suddenly appear on the road while driving are unexpected, rare objects that differ from their surroundings in terms of visual and semantic contextual appropriateness and have extreme value features. Spatial attentional processes enable the identification of these objects and the accurate performance of many important tasks.

In the research conducted to date, it has not been examined in detail how where the spatial attention is directed, independent of the visual characteristics of the objects, affects the detection of the extreme value object. Prof. Dr. Ahu Gökçe from the Psychology Department of our university. Prof. Dr. Ahu Gökçe from the Department of Psychology of our university was entitled to receive support within the scope of TÜBİTAK ARDEB 3501 Career Program with the project titled “The Effects of Selective Visuospatial Attention Processes and Semantic Context on Outlier Detection and Representation Performance”, which aims to examine the effect of visuospatial attention processes in identifying such objects with outlier features.

Within the scope of this project, Dr. Gökçe, together with Prof. Ayşecan Boduroğlu from the Department of Psychology at Boğaziçi University, will examine the effect of spatial attentional processes on the detection, representation and processing of extreme value through the expectations created by semantic context, using both simple images and visual scenes encountered in daily life in a series of experiments. Part of the project will compare the performance of social science and architecture students to examine the effect of spatial bias and visual and spatial thinking style.

The findings will be informed by the literatures on visual perception, selective spatial attention, and individual differences (social science or architectural training) and will contribute to the broader representation of extreme values. The findings obtained by examining the relationship between visual attention and the processing of extreme value stimuli are expected to be useful in spatial thinking mechanisms in daily life activities such as education, traffic and driving behavior, specialized fields such as security and medical imaging, and applied fields such as improving online education.