In everyday life, objects are rarely encountered in isolation against a blank background; instead, they typically co-occur with other objects within scenes. Information from the surrounding environment provides valuable clues that help us navigate the complex visual world. My research examines how scene context and object relationships shape how we see, make sense of the world, and guide our behavior in naturalistic environments.
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Scene-context facilitation in visual cognition
Scene-context facilitation in visual cognition
In this series of studies, we investigated how scene context facilitates object perception and supports the ability to predict object states when they are temporarily hidden from view.
Yeh, L.C., Gayet, S., Kaiser, D., & Peelen, M.V. (2025). The neural time course of size constancy in natural scenes. Cortex, 188, 1-12.
Yeh, L.C., Bardelang, M., & Kaiser, D. (2025). Cortical alpha rhythms interpolate occluded motion from natural scene context. J Neurophysiol.133:5, 1497-1502.
The role of object relationships in visual cognition
The role of object relationships in visual cognition
The relationships between objects and their surrounding scenes play a crucial role in visual cognition, as they can either facilitate processing or give rise to competition. In my research, I investigate how different types of object relationships, encompassing perceptual similarity, categorical and contextual associations, and neural representational similarity, shape object representations and guide performance in everyday visual tasks.
Contextual associations
Ongoing project: Seen Together, Activating Together: How object co-occurrence statistics shape object representation and visual cognition. (funded by the MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships)
The aim of this project is to investigate the impact of object contextual associations on object representation and visual cognition. The project has four objectives: (1) to identify where and when contextual associations are represented in the brain, how they rival other competing organizations, and which mechanisms enable these representations. (2) to investigate how contextual associations modulate neural competition between objects using fMRI. (3) to examine whether contextual associations can facilitate conscious perception using the attentional blink paradigm and explore where and when neural representations of contextual associations predict AB magnitudes. (4) to investigate how and when contextual associations impact performance and neural processing in visual search. Overall, this research will provide a comprehensive characterization of how object co-occurrence in the world shapes human vision and open new avenues for explaining visual behaviors in natural environments.
Yeh, L.C., Seferovic, B., Peelen, M.V., & Kaiser, D. (submitted) Contextual associations impact visual search across multiple processing stages.
Yeh, L.C., Peelen, M.V., & Kaiser, D. (submitted) Spatiotemporal representations of contextual associations for real-world objects.
- Arthur Heyer (1872 - 1931) Ruhende Bulldogge und weiße Perserkatze
Category
In this series of studies, we investigated how categorical similarity (animate - inanimate) influences visual search and memory search performance and the time course of its influence.
Yeh, L.C., Peelen, M.V. (2022). The time course of categorical and perceptual similarity effects in visual search. J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform 48:1069-1082
Shang, L., Yeh, L.C., Zhao,Y., Wiegand, I., & Peelen, M.V. (2024). Category-based attention facilitates memory search. eNeuro 11(2)
Shang, L., Yeh, L.C., Zhao,Y., & Peelen, M.V. (2026) Unpacking similarity effects in visual memory search: categorical, semantic, and visual contributions. Journal of Memory and Language, 146, 104712.
- Still Life with Apples and Bananas (1925) by Charles Demuth. Original from The Detroit Institute of Arts. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel
Neural representational similarity
Here, we investigated the common and unique associations between neural representational similarity and different types of visual tasks.
Yeh, L.C., Thorat, S., & Peelen, M.V. (2024). Predicting cued and oddball visual search performance from neural representational similarity. J Neurosci 44: e1107232024
Perceptual similarity
In this series of studies, we investigated how perceptual Target-Distractor similarity is related to search performance.
Yeh, L.C., Yeh, Y.Y., & Kuo, B.C. (2019). Spatially specific attention mechanisms are sensitive to competition during visual search. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 31(8), 1248-1259.
Yeh, L.C. (2022). Neural Evidence for the Influence of Target-nontarget Competition on Selective Attention in Visual Search. (Ph.D. thesis)
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