Oculomotor Lab

Doris Chow

Research

I am broadly interested in how our brain enables us to perceive our multisensory and dynamic environment coherently. My current research explores the interaction between eye movements and optic flow perception, to develop a test of motion sensitivity using eye movements in aging and patient populations. This work has been supported by UBC Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies, Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research, and Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Before UBC, I investigated the development of multisensory perception between vision, audition, and touch, using psychophysics, electroencephalography and pupillometry.

CV

Education:

PhD (Developmental and Brain Sciences) from University of Massachusetts, Boston, USA (2018)
MPhil in Psychology from University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong (2013)
BSocSci in Psychology from University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong (2011)

Awards & Fellowships:

2020-2023 CIHR Fellowship
2019-2022 MSFHR Research Trainee Award
2020 FoVea Travel and Networking Award
2014, 2017 UMB International Travel Student Award
2011 IMRF Student Travel Award

Research experience:

Since 09/2018 – Postdoctoral researcher in Oculomotor Lab, Dept. Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, UBC (supervised by Dr. Miriam Spering)
09/2013-08/2018 – PhD student in Baby Lab, University of Massachusetts Boston (supervised by Dr. Vivian Ciaramitaro)
10/2014-08/2018 – Researcher in Living Laboratory®, Museum of Science, Boston
09/2011-08/2013 – MPhil student in Perception, Attention, & Learning Lab, University of Hong Kong (supervised by Dr. Chia-huei Tseng)
02/2013-07/2013 – Research intern in Communication Science Laboratory, NTT, Japan (supervised by Dr. Hsin-Ni Ho)
09/2009-08/2011 – Undergraduate thesis student and research assistant in Perception, Attention, & Learning Lab, University of Hong Kong (supervised by Dr. Chia-huei Tseng)

Educator development & Teaching experience:

Educator development (UBC): Instructional Skills Workshop (2018 Fall), Postdoc Teaching Internship (2019 Spring), Formative Peer Review of Teaching
Instructor of Record (UBC): Seminar in Cognitive Systems (2021/22 Winter Term 1 & 2)
Instructor of Record (UMB): Perception (2016 Fall, 2017 Summer)
Teaching Assistant (UMB): Learning & Memory, Statistics, Experimental Methods in Physiological Psychology, Experimental Methods in Social Psychology (2013-2018)
Teaching Assistant (HKU): Cognitive Psychology, Introduction to Psychology (2011-2013)

Publications

Note: I publish under my official name which is Hiu Mei Chow. For conference abstract/proceedings, please check out my personal website.

Chow, H.M., Knöll, J., Madsen, M., & Spering, S. (2021). Look where you go: Characterizing eye movements toward optic flow. Journal of Vision, 21(3), 19.
Tseng, C.H., Chow, H.M., Liang, J., Shiori, S., & Chen, C.C. (2021). Collinear search impairment is luminance contrast invariant. Scientific Reports, 11, 11507.
Chow, H.M., Harris, D., Eid, S., & Ciaramitaro, V.M. (2021). The feeling of ‘baba’? Comparing developmental changes in sound-shape correspondence for audio-visual and audio-tactile stimuli. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 209, 105167.
Chow, H.M., Leviyah, X., & Ciaramitaro, V.M. (2020). Individual differences in multisensory interactions: the influence of temporal phase coherence and auditory salience on visual contrast sensitivity. Vision, 4(1), 12.
Chow, H.M., & Ciaramitaro, V.M. (2019). What makes a shape ‘baba’? The shape features prioritized in sound-shape correspondence change with development. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 179, 73-89.
Ho, H-N., Chow, H.M., Tsunokake, S., & Roseboom, W. (2019). A sensory processing hierarchy for thermal touch: Thermal adaptation occurs prior to thermal-tactile integration. IEEE Transactions on Haptics .
Deng, X., Cheng, C., Chow, H.M., & Ding, X. (2019). Prefer feeding bad? Subcultural differences in emotional preferences between Han Chinese and Mongolian Chinese. International Journal of Psychology, 54(3), 333-341.
Spering, M., & Chow, H.M. (2018). Rapid assessment of natural visual motion integration across primate species (commentary). Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences USA , 115(4), 11112-11114
Tseng, C.H., Chow, H.M., Ma, Y.K., & Jie, D. (2018). Preverbal infants utilize cross-modal semantic congruency in artificial grammar acquisition. Scientific Reports, 8, 12707.
Ciaramitaro, V.M., Chow, H.M., & Eglington, L.(2017). Crossmodal attention influences auditory contrast sensitivity: Decreasing visual load improves auditory thresholds for amplitude and frequency modulated sounds. Journal of Vision, 17(3), article 20.
Chow, H.M., Jingling, L. Tseng, C.H. (2016). Eye of origin guides attention away: An ocular singleton column impairs visual search like a collinear column. Journal of Vision, 16, 12.
Tsui, A.S.M., Ma, Y.K., Ho, S.Y., Chow, H.M., Tseng, C.H. (2016). Bimodal emotion congruency is critical to preverbal infants’ abstract rule learning. Developmental Science, 19(3), 382-393.
Chow, H.M., & Tseng, C.H. (2015). Invisible collinear structures impair search. Consciousness & Cognition, 31, 46-59.
Chow, H.M., Jingling, L. & Tseng, C.H. (2013). Collinear integration affects visual search at V1. Journal of Vision, 13(10), article 24.
Tseng, C.H., Chow, H.M., & Spillmann, L. (2013). Falling skyscrapers: When cross-modality perception of verticality fails. Psychological Science, 24(7), 1341-1347.
Tseng, C.H., Chow, H.M., Spillmann, L., Oxner, M. & Sakurai, K. (under revision). Body pitch together with body motion biases subjective haptic vertical.

Science outreach

Select previous activities:

Engage museum patrons about research on multisensory perception and eye movements at the Science World British Columbia (2019-2021)
Mentor UBC undergraduate students through the Research Experience Program (2019-2021)
Mentor UBC undergraduate/medical students in the laboratory (2018-2021)
Engaged museum patrons about research on multisensory perception at the Living Laboratory ®, Museum of Science, Boston (2014-2018)
Organized UMB Baby Lab’s outreach table at the Cambridge Science Festival with eye tracking and behavioral experiment demonstration (2017 spring)
Discussed scientific research with high school students to promote interest in neuroscience as part of Brain Awareness Week at the Museum of Science Boston (2016-2018), on campus (2016) and at high schools (2015)
Taught a 5-week course on “Understanding the world with different senses” and related themes at UMB Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (2015 Spring, 2016 Spring)