Ghuman Lab
Principal Investigator: Avniel S Ghuman
Institution: University of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh, PA)
Primary Subfield: Neuroscience
Recruitment Status: Inquire for rotation/fellowship opportunities
Research Focus
Summary/Abstract The dominant paradigm in social visual neuroscience has been to present simplified stimuli, often consisting of static images in isolation presented without context, passively, to subjects required to maintain gaze fixation. While much has been learned using this paradigm, it cannot capture all aspects of how social vision (SV) works. Specifically, active observers combine motoric information gathering behaviors (eye and head movement) to optimally sample perceptual information in a complex, natural multisensory social environment. Indeed, there are few places where active vision is more critical than in the study of the neurobiology of SV. Real world SV is a prototypic active sensing process where we use our experience, along with all of our sensing and interpretive capacities to gather social and affective information from other people in a complex and dynamic setting. Simply put, SV, as typically studied, does not adequately approximate actively interacting with friends, family, or your doctor. Recent advances in computer vision, machine learning, and computational analysis now provide means to attack a critical goal of social neuroscience: how the social and af…
Active NIH Awards
- 5R01MH132225-04: Active Social Vision: How the Brain Processes Visual Information During Natural Social Perception (2026)
- 1R61MH138967-01: A Day in the Life of the Human Brain: Investigating the Dynamic Interrelationship Between Brain, Cognition, Behavior, and Physiology (2026)
- 5R01MH132225-03: Active Social Vision: How the Brain Processes Visual Information During Natural Social Perception (2025)
- 5R01MH132225-02: Active Social Vision: How the Brain Processes Visual Information During Natural Social Perception (2024)
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