T. Rowan Candy

M.C. Optometry, Cardiff University, 1990
Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 1997

Research Interests

See also Laboratory webpage: www.opt.indiana.edu/people/faculty/candy/index.html

Central research interest: The effects of immaturities and abnormalities of the visual system on the development of vision.

Why is this interesting?
• Vision is a principal source of information during learning and development.
• Postnatal development of the eye and brain are both influenced by the quality of vision infants experience after birth, and therefore we have an opportunity to prevent clinical abnormality using careful manipulation of visual experience during infancy and early childhood.

Methods we employ in our lab to study what a baby can see: We study human infants, typically between birth and six months of age, using optical, EEG and behavioral techniques.

We incorporate approaches from the fields of neuroscience, psychology and medicine.? Our current main goal is to understand the relationship between ocular accommodation and vergence during the first years after birth. Understanding how the focus and alignment of the eyes are controlled and synchronized while the eye and head grow will provide insight into the statistical regularities in the perception of space during development, and the underlying causes of clinical conditions, primarily strabismus and amblyopia. This research is funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Representative Publications

Candy, T,R. and Bharadwaj, S.R. (in press). The stability of steady-state accommodation in human infants. Journal of Vision.

Tondel, G.M. and Candy, T.R. (2007). Human infants' accommodation responses to dynamic stimuli. Investigative Opthalmology & Visual Science, 48(2): 949-956.

Wang, J. and Candy, T.R. (2005). Higher order monochromatic aberrations of the human infant eye. Journal of Vision, 5(6): 543-55.