Ramakrishna Chakravarthi

Lecturer, School of Psychology, Aberdeen

pdf of my cv

2012 - Present:   Lecturer, School of Psychology

                        University of Aberdeen, Scotland UK

2009 – 2012:       CNRS, Toulouse, France

                        Centre de Recherche Cerveau et Cognition,

                        Post Doctoral Fellow; Advisor: Dr. Rufin VanRullen

 

2007 – 2009:       New York University, New York NY

Post Doctoral Fellow in Psychology and Neural Science; Advisor: Prof. Denis Pelli

 

2002 – 2007:       Harvard University, Cambridge MA

PhD in Psychology: Cognition, Brain and Behavior; Advisor: Prof. Patrick Cavanagh

                        Thesis: Mechanisms of Visual Crowding: The Role of Attention

 

1999 – 2001:       Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, India

M.S. in Consciousness Studies;

Dissertation: On the Timing of Conscious Experience: A Critical Review of Libet’s Work

 

1993 – 1999:       Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, India

                        M.B., B.S. (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery)

 

Grants and Funding

2006-07: Graduate Society Dissertation Completion Fellowship, Harvard University, $18,000

2006: McMasters travel grant for presenting at VSS conference, 2006, $500

2005: Graduate Society Fellowship Summer Award, Harvard University, $3,000

2004: Mind, Brain and Behavior Graduate Student Award, Harvard University, $5,000

2003-04: Harvard University Graduate Summer Awards, $3,000/year

2002-04: Harvard University GSAS Merit Fellowship, $70,000

2000-01: Sir Ratan Tata Trust Scholarship for the M.S. Program, INR 15,000

Awards and Prizes

2005: Certificate of Distinction in Teaching, Harvard University

1996: Dr. M.N. Guruswamy Prize for standing first in Pharmacology in M.B., B.S.

1995: Manoj Salian Memorial Prize for standing second in First M.B., B.S.

1993: 15^th rank in engineering and 30^th rank in medical Common Entrance Test, Karnataka, India

Research Interests

Attention: speed of processing in the periphery; feature integration; neural mechanisms; illusions

Object recognition: mechanisms underlying crowding; binding and Gestalt laws; Schizophrenia and autism

Subitization and enumeration

Current Projects

EEG/TMS: Neural oscillations in perception and short term memory

EEG: Encoding spatial locations; neural representation of textures and moving objects 

Crowding: crowding subitization; Gestalt laws in crowding

 

Teaching Experience

2010-2011: Mentored 2 Masters students and currently mentoring a third: 3-month research internships, CNRS, France

2004-06

Fall: Teaching Fellow, The Evolution of Human Nature. Taught by Professors Marc Hauser and Richard Wrangham, Harvard University, 2 semesters

Spring: Teaching Fellow, The Human Mind. Taught by Professor Steven Pinker, Harvard University, 2 semesters

 

Professional Affiliations

Vision Sciences Society

Karnataka Medical Council, India

Reviewer

Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance

Journal of Vision

Vision Research

Review Editor: Frontiers of Consciousness Research

 

Publications

Chakravarthi, R. and VanRullen, R. (2012). Conscious updating is a rhythmic process, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, doi:10.1073/pnas.1121622109.

Freeman, J., Chakravarthi, R., and Pelli, D. G. (2012). Substitution and pooling in crowding, Attention, Perception & Psychophysics, 72 (4): 379 - 396.

Chakravarthi, R. and Pelli, D. G. (2011). The same binding in contour integration and crowding, Journal of Vision, 11 (8): 10, 1-12. 

Chakravarthi, R. and VanRullen, R. (2011). Bullet trains and steam engines: Exogenous attention zips but endogenous attention chugs along, Journal of Vision, 11 (4):12, 1-12

Chakravarthi, R. and Cavanagh, P. (2009). Recovery of a crowded object by masking the distracters: Determining the locus of feature integration, Journal of Vision. 9 (10):4, 1-9

Chakravarthi, R. and Cavanagh, P. (2009). Bilateral field advantage in visual crowding, Vision Research, 49 (13): 1638 – 1646.

Vickery, T. J., Shim, W. M., Chakravarthi, R., Jiang, Y. V., and Luedeman, R. (2009). Supercrowding: Weakly masking a target expands the range of crowding, Journal of Vision, 9 (2):12, 1-15.

Chakravarthi, R. and Cavanagh, P. (2007). Temporal properties of the polarity advantage effect in crowding, Journal of Vision, 7 (11): 1 – 12.

Ramakrishna, C. (2002). Real latencies and facilitation, Consciousness and Cognition, 11(2): 300 – 303.

 

Manuscripts under progress

Conference Presentations

Chakravarthi, R., Carlson, T. A., Chaffin, J., Turret, J. and VanRullen, R. (2011). O brother, where art thou?Locations of 1st and 2nd order objects are represented in the same way but at different times, as revealed by single-trial decoding of EEG signals. Talk presented at the European Conference on Vision and Perception, Toulouse, France.

Chakravarthi, R. and VanRullen, R. (2011). Attention is a state of mind: Phase of ongoing EEG oscillations predicts the timing of attentional deployment. Poster presented at the 11th annual meeting of Vision Sciences Society, Naples, FL.

Rosen, S., Chakravarthi, R., and Pelli, D. G. (2010). Crowding is grouping. Talk presented at the 11th annual meeting of Vision Sciences Society, Naples, FL.

Rosen, S., Chakravarthi, R., and Pelli, D. G. (2010). Grouping is fundamental to object recognition. Talk presented at the European Conference on Vision and Perception, Lausanne, Switzerland.

Chakravarthi, R. (2010). Mechanisms in crowding and blink: what can they tell us about consciousness? Symposium chaired at the 14th annual meeting of Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness, Toronto, Canada.

Chakravarthi, R. and Rosen, S. (2010). Pool party: Admit one. Talk presented at the 14th annual meeting of Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness, Toronto, Canada.

Chakravarthi, R. and VanRullen, R. (2010). Beam me up Scotty! Exogenous attention teleports but endogenous attention takes the shuttle. Talk presented at the 10th annual meeting of Vision Sciences Society, Naples, FL.

Pelli, D. G., Freeman, J., and Chakravarthi, R. (2010). Crowding combines. Talk presented at the 10^th annual meeting of Vision Sciences Society, Naples, FL.

Rosen, S., Chakravarthi, R., and Pelli, D. G. (2010). Pool party, objects rule! Poster presented at the 10^th annual meeting of Vision Sciences Society, Naples, FL.

Granata, Y., Chakravarthi, R., Rosen, S., and Pelli. D. G. (2010). Size pooling. Poster presented at the 10^th annual meeting of Vision Sciences Society, Naples, FL.

Chakravarthi, R., Tillman, K., and Pelli, D. G. (2009). Features used or features available? Talk presented at the 9^th annual meeting of Vision Sciences Society, Naples, FL.

Veenemans, A., Cavanagh, P., and Chakravarthi, R. (2009). Crowding by invisible flankers. Poster presented at the 9th annual meeting of Vision Sciences Society, Naples, FL.

Chakravarthi, R. and Pelli, D. G. (2008). What role does contour integration play in crowding? Talk presented at the 8th annual meeting of Vision Sciences Society, Naples, FL.

Rosen, S., Chakravarthi, R., and Pelli, D. G. (2008). Nasotemporal asymmetry in crowding. Talk presented at the 8^th annual meeting of Vision Sciences Society, Naples, FL.

Vickery, T. J., Shim, W. M., Jiang, Y. V., Chakravarthi, R., and Luedeman, R. (2008). Supercrowding: Weakly masking a target greatly enhances crowding. Talk presented at the 8th annual meeting of Vision Sciences Society, Naples, FL.

Chatterjee, G. and Chakravarthi, R. (2008). Characterization of flickering-flanker induced blindness phenomenon. Poster presented at ECVP 2008, Utrecht, Netherlands.

Chakravarthi R., Rajagopal, A.K., and Usha Devi, A. R. (2008). Quantum mechanical basis of vision. Talk presented at India-US workshop on Science and Technology at the Nano-Bio Interface, Bhubaneshawar, India.

Chakravarthi, R. and Cavanagh, P. (2007). The effect of distracters on enumeration in the periphery. Poster presented at the 7^th annual meeting of Vision Sciences Society, Sarasota, FL.

Chakravarthi, R. and Cavanagh, P. (2006). Hemifield independence in visual crowding. Talk presented at the 6^th annual meeting of Vision Sciences Society, Sarasota, FL.

Chakravarthi, R. and Cavanagh, P. (2005). Temporal properties of the polarity advantage effect in crowding. Poster presented at the 5th annual meeting of Vision Sciences Society, Sarasota, FL.

 

Invited Talks

2012: One rule to bind them all. Presented at the British Science Festival, Aberdeen UK

2011: Object recognition: Tales from crowding, updating and decoding. Presented at CerCo, CNRS, Toulouse.

2011:When one's company, two's a crowd in object recognition. Presented at CerCo day symposium, Camaran, France.

2010: Object recognition and visual attention. Presented at the Center for Brain and Cognitive Sciences, University of Allahabad, India.

2007: Mechanisms in Visual Crowding. Presented at the Cognition, Brain and Behavior Research Seminar, Harvard University.

2006: The Resolution of Visual Consciousness. Presented at Mind, Brain, and Behavior Graduate Seminar Series, Harvard University.

 

References

1.  Patrick Cavanagh

Professor, Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, Universite Paris Descartes

Email: patrick.cavanagh@parisdescartes.fr

2.  Ken Nakayama

     Professor, Vision Sciences Laboratory, Department of Psychology, Harvard University

     Email: ken@wjh.harvard.edu

3.  Denis Pelli

Professor, Psychology and Neural Science, New York University

Email: denis.pelli@nyu.edu

4.  Rufin VanRullen

CNRS Researcher (DR2), Centre de Recherche Cerveau et Cognition, Université Paul Sabatier

Email: rufin.vanrullen@cerco.ups-tlse.fr

5.  Thomas Carlson

Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park

Email: tcarlson@psyc.umd.edu