Research Interests

I am fascinated by the brain’s ability to rapidly and accurately categorise objects we encounter in the visual world. My research centres on one of the most critical forms of object-recognition performed by the visual system – human face-perception. In my PhD, I examined the temporal dynamics of nonconscious face-processing using a novel behavioural methodology, continuous reaching trajectories. Using this approach, I provided some of the first behavioural evidence that face-processing is sensitive to manipulations of exogenous spatial attention and temporal attention (Quek & Finkbeiner, 2013), and also showed that face-sex recognition is advantaged at locations in the upper visual field compared to the lower visual field (Quek & Finkbeiner, 2014). As a postdoc in the Face-Categorization lab, I will couple EEG recording with fast period visual stimulation techniques to learn more about the timecourse of face-processing and the factors which modulate it (e.g. attention and expectation). 

Publications

Quek, G.L., Nemrodov, D., Rossion, B., Liu-Shuang, J. (in press). Selective attention to faces in a rapid visual stream: hemispheric differences in enhancement and suppression of category-selective neural activity. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.PDF

Quek, G.L., Rossion, B. (2017). Category-selective human brain processes elicited in fast periodic visual stimulation streams are immune to temporal predictability. Neuropsychologia, 104, 182-200.PDF

Quek, G. L. & Finkbeiner, M. (in press). The upper-hemifield advantage for masked face-processing: Not just an attentional bias. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics.PDF

Quek, G., & Finkbeiner, M. (2014). Gaining the upper hand: Evidence of vertical asymmetry in sex-categorization of human hands. Advances in Cognitive Psychology, 10(4),131-143

Quek, G. L., & Finkbeiner, M. (2014). Face-perception is superior in the upper visual field: Evidence from masked priming. Visual Cognition, 22(8), 1038-1042.

Quek, G. L., & Finkbeiner, M. (2014). Face-sex categorisation is better above-fixation than below: Evidence from the Reach-to-Touch paradigm. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 14(4), 1407-1419

Quek, G., & Finkbeiner, M. (2013). Spatial and temporal attention modulate the early stages of face processing: Behavioural evidence from a reaching paradigm. PLoS ONE, 8(2): e57365