Soazig and I working on our talks in the conference restaurant & bar
The 2019 edition of the European Conference on Eye Movements (ECEM) took place in blisteringly hot Alicante this year. This coincided almost perfectly with the end of our ORA grant so Soazig and I were keen to go and present some of the key findings to the eye-movement community. It was also very welcome to trade the dull and rainy UK with its Brexit blues for sunnier climes đ. Â We were fortunate to both get talk slots; my talk was first in our session, which was chaired by Marissa Carrasco. I described some experiments demonstrating how the Effective Oculomotor Range constrains spatial attention, including data from our recent Cortex paper, and some new data (slides here: DanSmith ECEM 2019). Everyone seemed interested and there was lots of nodding, although I once made the mistake of making eye-contact with a frowning Heiner Deubel which rather to put me off my stride! There were some good questions but I fumbled the one on IOR a bit, which was annoying because all the data are in the Cortex paper and I just forgot about it. I then moderated for Marissaâs talk (since she came to Durham we are now on 1st name terms đ) but there was then a rather comical/awkward moment when we had a brief discussion/disagreement about how much time was left 10 mins into her talk. (I know it was exactly 10 minutes BECAUSE I WAS TIMING IT WITH A TIMER). Luca Wollenberg was next, and he presented some nice new data on the time-course attention in averaging saccades, and got a good laugh offering to do a little dance in lieu of taking questions. The session concluded with two interesting talks from Visser, Renswoude & colleagues on attention to features in category learning. In the final session of the meeting Soazig presented data on interactions between WM and presaccadic attention that was so hot-off-the press she was still running analyses the day before the talk. Unfortunately, I missed it having booked an early flight, but from what I hear on Twitter it went very well, and the data are certainly very exciting.
In addition to seeing the talks on attention and eye-movements in our own sessions, one of the pleasures of ECEM is hearing about the range of cognitive processes that are informed by studies of eye-movements, and this year was no different. Some particular highlights for me were Edwin Dalmaijerâs talk on disgust, a very insightful discussion of eye-movements in Parkinsonâs disease with Chyrstalina Antoniades, the keynote from Jenny Groh explaining the motoric effects of auditory attention, Jonas Ludwigâs talk on the âzero biasâ in decision making and Eugene McSorley’s talk on saccade programming. Pupillometry seemed to be in vogue this year too, and I enjoyed Sebastiaan Mathots talk describing on pupillometric marker for exploration vs exploitation modes of visual search. I also really enjoyed the session on âLooking at Nothingâ chaired by Johansson & Rosner. I sat in on a similar session at my first ECEM in Lund (2013) and it was interesting to see how the debate had moved on from a discussion of the existence of the looking at nothing effect to a discussion of its function. It also gave me a few ideas for experiments on imagery, which chimed with the ideas I discussed with Dan Eaves at the RIO group 
meeting earlier this year (REPORT).
In general, I was impressed with the quality of talks (with the odd exception), although it was a bit unfortunate that some of the screens in the lecture rooms were rather small. There was lots of interest in the poster sessions too, my favourite poster being this one from Rakesh Nanjappar ->. It was also amusing to watch Ken Scott-Brown hovering around his two students (Krystian Ciesielski and Crystal Silver) like an expectant father as they presented their work. Mercifully there was only one of the ânew postersâ where most of the body is taken up with the conclusion, as if the purpose of a poster session is to put up an advert. The poster sessions were also a great opportunity to catch up with old chums like Ken, Doug Barrett, Eugene McSorely, Iain Gilchrist, Edwin Dalmeijer and Cas Ludwig. Our discussions during the posters were well lubricated with wine, beer and soft drinks & there was plenty of tapas-style food at lunchtime which was included with the conference registration fee. I thought the quality of the catering at lunchtime was excellent, but not everyone shared this view and I think there were some issues with the vegetarian selections. In the evenings we tended to eat late, as is the Spanish way, and a real highlight for me was the evening in the tapas bar where the staff rang a bell whenever they got a tip. I also really enjoyed the conference dinner in the spectacular surroundings of Castell Santa Barbara, although I paid for it the next day!
A minor gripe was that the lack of wi-fi, and at first this felt very frustrating. However, on reflection I think it was probably a bit of a blessing in disguise as I spent a lot more time talking with people, which is probably one of the main points of a conference! Overall ECEM 2019 was an excellent meeting which I found intellectually stimulating, produced some excellent schmoozing and was thoroughly enjoyable. Hats off to the organizing committee for doing a great job, Iâm already looking forward to Leicester 2021.
The conference dinner in full swing
Views over Alicante Harbour from the Castell. A zealous museum attendant chased me back to to the party after taking this one!
Looking up to the castle- the narrow roads meat our bus ride took some time and involved a complicated set of transfers between busses
Grant Success!
Dan has been awarded a 3 year grant from the Dunhill Medical Trust to study attention and working memory in Progressive Supranuclear Palsy. PSP is a neurodegenerative disease affecting the basal ganglia that is characterised by paralysis of the eyes. People who suffer from PSP are often misdiagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, and so receive inappropriate medication. The project will explore whether cognitive tests of attention and memory can be used to make early and more reliable diagnoses of PSP. The project is in collaboration with Dr Neil Archibald (James Cook University Hospital) and the PSP Association.
Talk at PSYPAG 2019
A couple of weeks ago I was invited down to Sheffield to present an overview of our recent findings to the PsyPAG annual conference. PsyPAG is the official postgraduate section of the BPS and covers all aspects of applied and academic psychology, so although I was part of the âCognitiveâ stre
am, I thought I should try and make my talk a bit broader than the usual premotor-theory bashing schtick Soazig and I indulge in. I took some inspiration from a talk Ray Klein gave in Durham a few years back where he talked about oculomotor readiness theories in terms of embodied cognition, and from the recent RIO group meeting I attended, where Dan Eaves and I discussed the many similarities between motor theories of attention and motor theories of imagery. I was keen to mention some recent data on spatial working memory in Progressive Supranuclear Palsy and framing the talk in the broad terms of âvisual cognitionâ gave me licence to talk about a wider range of topics than just Premotor theory. With this theme I managed to touch on our earlier work with Case A.I, some eye-abduction data, Soazigâs recent data on search and cueing beyond the Effective Oculomotor Range and a bit on PSP. In the end I think this approach was quite successful at keeping people engaged with the talk, with lots of people nodding and nobody frowning too much! Interestingly, the questions were really focused on the applications of the research to different disorders, such as ADHD. On reflection, I think offering a more thorough discussion of the potential applications of our project in terms of rehab. For example, touching the kind of work Joris Elshout is doing in the Utrecht leg of the project, might have been a good idea. At the end of the talk I was surprised and delighted to be given some mementos of the occasion, which were only slightly awkward to carry back on the train đ.  If you are interested in seeing the slides, they can be found here: “Are cognitive processes embodied in the motor system?”
Around my talk I had an enjoyable time looking through the many and varied posters. My favourite was from Gabriele Pesimena that examined to what extent perspective taking was disrupted by changes to the perspective of the avatar. Pleasingly, changing perspective had no effect, just as Geoff Cole had shown a couple of years ago! Many other posters utilised eye-tracking in one way or another, and this technique really seems to be becoming commonplace (although TBH in some cases it wasnât always clear why eye-tracking was being used). There was also time to catch a couple of talks, and I particularly enjoyed Ben Butterworth (a Durham Psychology alumni) outlining the challenges of his research on the effects of alcohol on memory performance, and Suzy Hodgsonâs talk on the roles new fathers play and how they interact with heath services. The talk sessions were very good with a really enthusiastic and engaged audience. There was also an excellent lunch, although I had a slightly awkward moment when I got shooed away from some very tasty cakes which apparently belonged to a different conference! However, all was not lost, as I subsequently discovered the Psychology cakes in the poster session đ. I also bumped into Ellen Ridley, who was receiving a Masters award for her research at Durham and offered her my congratulations. I really enjoyed the conference and would definitely recommend it to any psychology postgrads looking for an opportunity to share their work in progress and gain experience giving talks. Its also worth noting that PsyPAGÂ offers many awards and small grants that can really help PGR develop their careers Finally, I would like to thank Suzanne Hodgson for the invitation to give the keynote.
Dan Smith
Goodbye & Hello to Soazig!
The Durham part of the Motor Bias project came to an end at the start of August. Fortunately Soazig, has now been re-appointed as a teaching fellow in the Psychology Department. This excellent news means we can continue to collaborate on the ideas we’ve been developing over the last few years. Welcome back Soazig!