"What does it mean, to see?" My
primary interest in psychology, neuroscience, and computer
science is cognition. My research has advanced from first
examining cognition and attentional control within the visual
system to now examine how multisensory processing contributes to
perception and cognition. Working with blind individuals in
particular helps to reveal the role of visual experience for
cognition and how the "visual" parts of the brain process other
information in the absence of visual input. Much of this work
has used a 'sensory-substitution' device (called The vOICe) that provides
visual information by translating visual input into sound. I
therefore study multiple sensory modalities and utilize multiple
methods to best understand the psychological and neural
underpinnings of cognition in human and non-human animals. Other
current projects include virtual reality (VR), the rubber hand
illusion, visual decision-making in zebrafish and bees,
perceptual learning, spatial cognition, numerical
representation, semantic memory, cognitive evolution,
synaesthesia, neurostimulation, crossmodal collaboration, and
sensory substitution.
We currently have funding for a project with Atkins Global
(design, engineering and project management firm) and a
collaboration with Prof Zalina Ismail at Universiti Sains
Malaysia on a neurocognitive study of educational interventions
along with Toyohashi University of Technology.
I was also part of an Arts
Council funded collaboration with three artists and a
lighting designer called Trans:Space
to address the question: "How do we perceive our environment
through sound and how can we interpret that for an audience?"
The project was initiated by the artist Jane Pitt.
Publications:
Halicka, M., Vitterso, A. D., Proulx, M. J., & Bultitude,
J. H. (in press). Neuropsychological changes in Complex Regional
Pain Syndrome (CRPS). Behavioural Neurology.
Hadnett-Hunter, J., Proulx, M. J., & O’Neill, E. (2019).
The effect of task on visual attention in interactive virtual
environments. Transactions on Applied Perception, 16, article
17. https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3352763
Fielder, J. C., & Proulx, M. J. (2019). Psychological
representation of visual impairment: perception and how blind
people “see” the world. The Routledge Handbook of Visual
Impairment: Social and Cultural Research (John
Ravenscroft, ed.). London: Routledge.
Vitterso, A. D., Halicka, M., Buckingham, G., Proulx, M. J.,
Wilson, M., & Bultitude, J. H. (2019). Experimentally
induced pain does not influence updating of peripersonal space
and body representations following tool-use. PLoS ONE, 14 (5),
e0210045. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0210045
Halicka, M., Vittersø, A. D., Proulx, M. J., & Bultitude,
J. H. (2019). Pain reduction by inducing sensory-motor
adaptation in Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS PRISMA):
Protocol for a double-blind Randomized Controlled Trial. medRxiv,
19000653. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/medrxiv/early/2019/06/25/19000653.full.pdf
Phillips, M., & Proulx, M. J. (2018). Social interaction
without vision: An assessment of assistive technology for the
visually impaired. Technology & Innovation, 20,
85-93. https://doi.org/10.21300/20.1-2.2018.85
Proulx, M. J., Brown, D. J., & Pasqualotto, A. (2018). The
processing of what, where, and how: insights from spatial
navigation via sensory substitution. Proceedings of the
British Academy, 219, 15-165.
Lv, J., Proulx, M.J., & Osman, M. (2015). The role of
personal values and empathy in a cooperative game. Journal
of Social Sciences Research, 9, 1834-1844.
Proulx, M. J. (2013). Visual Search. In H. Pashler, T. Crane,
M. Kinsbourne, F. Ferreira, & R. Zemel (Eds.), Encyclopedia
of the Mind (Vol. 2, pp. 762-765). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
Publications.
Proulx, M. J., & Harder, A. (2008). Sensory
Substitution. Visual-to-auditory sensory substitution
devices for the blind. Dutch Journal of Ergonomics/
Tijdschrift voor Ergonomie, 33, 20-22.
BSc student Crescent Jicol received the Wellcome Trust
Biomedical Vacation Scholarship for a summer project in the lab
Dr Alexandra de Sousa and Michael received a British Council
Second City Partnership Travel Grant to form new collaborations
with researchers at the Bandung Institute of
Technology and the University of Indonesia
Michael and Dave were interviewed for Manoto 1's Tech
Show (the largest Persian-language channel) on sensory
substitution, blindness and neuroplasticity.
Michael has been elected Fellow of the Society for
Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Science (American
Psychological Association).
"How well do you see what you hear?" Our new paper in
Frontiers in Psychology (with Alastair Haigh, Dave Brown, and
The vOICe inventor Peter Meijer) is now published and received
media attention from BBC Radio
Bristol, BBC Radio 5
Live, Time Magazine and others in print.
Michael and Dave spent a day teaching the BBC presenter Peter White to use
The vOICe and
talking about the psychological and neural research related to
sensory substitution. The segment appeared on The One Show
on BBC One. More information here.
A paper in Behavioural Brain Research (with
Achille Pasqualotto and Jade Lam) has received extensive media
attention (more information here.).
We also presented our work at a British Academy meeting on
Sensory Substitution including a demo of The vOICe.
Michael also spoke recently at the International
Multisensory Research Forum and a Sensory Substitution
Workshop at the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies in
Jerusalem, Israel, June 2013.
