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Professor Christopher Tyler

Professor of Visual Science

School of Health & Psychological Sciences Department of Optometry and Visual Sciences

Contact details

Address

Professor Christopher Tyler
City, University of London
Northampton Square
London EC1V 0HB
United Kingdom

About

Overview

Professor Tyler is a visual neuroscientist specializing in visual and oculomotor function and disorders who joined City University of London in 2013. He previously worked at several universities in the United States and has been a long-established researcher at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute, San Francisco, where he established its Brain Imaging Center. He maintains active collaborations with research groups in France, Germany, United States, Taiwan, Israel and Australia.

Christopher Tyler received his training in Experimental Psychology at the Universities of Leicester, Aston and Keele before taking postdoctoral fellowships at Northeastern University, Boston, University of Bristol and Bell Laboratories. He then took up a position at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute, where he retains an affiliation, and has taught courses at Northeastern, UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, UC Berkeley and the University of Paris along the way. He has given numerous keynote addresses to scientific meetings across a range of disciplines, from traumatic brain injury to stereopsis and color vision to Renaissance art and cartography.

Qualifications

D.Sc. and PhD.

Memberships of professional organisations

  • SfN, VSS, ARVO, AVA

Awards

  • Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute (1996) Kettlewell Chair
  • Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute (1985) Kettlewell Chair
  • American Academy of Optometry (1982) Garland-Clay Award

Languages

French and Italian.

Research

Research Overview

Christopher Tyler's scientific interests are in the processes of visual perception and visual neuroscience. He has contributed to the study of the brain processing of many aspects of visual processing, including form, symmetry, flicker, motion, color, and particularly stereoscopic depth perception. He has developed effective psychophysical and electrophysiological tests for the diagnosis of retinal, optic nerve, visual cortical and oculomotor disorders. He has also studied photoreceptor dynamics, and neural processing in other species such as butterflies and fish. His current work is focused on the effects of traumatic brain damage on eye movements and their brainstem control mechanisms.

Research Areas

- Psychophysics
- Electroencephalography
- Oculomotility
- Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging
- Mathematical modelling
- Statistical analysis
- Image processing

Grants

CDMRP (US) "Human Oculomotor Functions & Their Deficits in Traumatic Brain Injury." The goal is to develop a basic suite of oculomotor measures, including fMRI of the brainstem nuclei involved, for the assessment of oculomotor deficits in the veterans with TBI relative to a normative sample.

AFOSR (US) "Encoding of 3D Structure in the Visual Scene: A New Conceptualization." The goal of this multidisciplinary proposal is to integrate fMRI, neurophysiology and modeling toward a mathematical conceptualization of the encoding of 3D structure from multiple surface cues.

NSF (US) "Short-, Medium- and Long-Term Neural Dynamics of Conceptual Learning." The goal of this project is to apply a novel temporal analysis to determining the time course of neural activation in cortical regions involved in the cognitive processes of learning.

Research Centre

- Optometry

Publications

Publications by category

Books (2)

  • Tyler, C.W. (2011). Computer vision: From surfaces to 3D objects. ISBN 978-1-4398-1712-4.
  • Tyler, C.W. (2011). Introduction: The role of midlevel surface representation in 3D object encoding. ISBN 978-1-4398-1712-4.

Chapters (4)

Conference papers and proceedings (27)

  • Tyler, C.W. (2020). Is human color perception complementary or opponent?
  • Tyler, C.W. (2019). Accelerated Cue Combination for Multicue Depth Perception.
  • Chen, C.H., Chen, C.C. and Tyler, C.W. (2019). Spatial Summation on a Pattern Mask.
  • Tyler, C.W. (2019). Did Leonardo da Vinci have Strabismus? Assessment of binocular alignment in a historical figure.
  • Jia, Y. and Tyler, C.W. (2018). Advanced understanding of face processing through ERP component analysis of electrical brain responses in low vision conditions.
  • Likova, L. and Tyler, C.W. (2018). When light hurts: Brain-morphometry in concussion photophobia.
  • Tyler, C.W. (2017). Integration of Monocular and Binocular Cues to Depth Perception.
  • Tyler, C.W. (2016). Peripheral color vision and motion processing. doi:10.2352/ISSN.2470-1173.2016.16HVEI-138
  • Solomon, J.A., May, K.A. and Tyler, C.W. (2014). Poor voluntary averaging of spatial orientations.
  • Tyler, C.W. and Chen, C. (2014). Rapid redeployment of the symmetry axis preference reveals an adaptive frame-of-reference principle in human symmetry processing.
  • Powers, M.K., Miner, G.L., Morita, Y. and Tyler, C.W. (2010). Vergence Stress Significantly Affects Reading Rates.
  • Kontsevich, L.L. and Tyler, C.W. (2004). Local channel structure of sustained peripheral vision. Electronic Imaging 2004. doi:10.1117/12.548290
  • Likova, L.T. and Tyler, C.W. (2004). Is the hMT+/V5 complex in the human brain involved in stereomotion perception? an fMRI study. Electronic Imaging 2004. doi:10.1117/12.568026
  • Tyler, C.W., Chen, C.C., Liu, C.L. and Wang, Y.H. (2003). FMIRI reveals rebound activation lateral to stimulated regions of retinotopic V1.
  • Likova, L.T. and Tyler, C.W. (2003). Failure of stereomotion capture in an object disappearance paradigm. Electronic Imaging 2003. doi:10.1117/12.485517
  • Tyler, C.W., Kontsevich, L. and Baseler, H. (2002). Independent spatiotemporal components in the fMRI BOLD response.
  • Tyler, C.W. and Ione, A. (2001). <title>Concept of space in 20th century art</title>. Photonics West 2001 - Electronic Imaging. doi:10.1117/12.429529
  • Chen, C.-.C. and Tyler, C.W. (2000). <title>Modelfest: principal component analysis reveals underlying channel structure</title>. Electronic Imaging. doi:10.1117/12.387151
  • Tyler, C.W. (2000). <title>Perspective as a geometric tool that launched the Renaissance</title>. Electronic Imaging. doi:10.1117/12.387209
  • Tyler, C.W. and Chen, C.-.C. (2000). <title>Spatial summation of face information</title>. Electronic Imaging. doi:10.1117/12.387183
  • Tyler, C.W. (1998). <title>Eye placement principles in portraits and figure studies over the past two millennia</title>. Photonics West '98 Electronic Imaging. doi:10.1117/12.320133
  • Tyler, C.W. (1997). Analysis of human receptor density.
  • Tyler, C.W. (1997). Diffuse illumination as a default assumption for shape-from-shading in the absence of shadows.
  • Tyler, C.W., Barghout, L. and Kontsevich, L.L. (1994). <title>Computational reconstruction of the mechanisms of human stereopsis</title>. Computational Vision Based on Neurobiology. doi:10.1117/12.171143
  • Tyler, C.W., Chan, H., Liu, L., McBride, B. and Kontsevich, L.L. (1992). Bit stealing: how to get 1786 or more gray levels from an 8-bit color monitor. SPIE/IS&T 1992 Symposium on Electronic Imaging: Science and Technology. doi:10.1117/12.135981
  • Tyler, C.W. and Gopi, A. Computational estimation of scene structure through texture gradient cues.doi:10.2352/issn.2470-1173.2017.14.hvei-138
  • Tyler, C.W. Rational Approaches to Correcting for Multiple Tests.doi:10.2352/issn.2470-1173.2018.14.hvei-535

Journal articles (257)

Professional activities

Event/conference

  • Consequences of Traumatic Brain Injury for Human Vergence Dynamics. School of Optometry, University of Cardiff, UK (2014).
    Description: Presentation at the British Congress of Optometry and Vision Science
    8-9th September 2014