Thomas W. James

B.S., University of Western Ontario, 1992
M.S., University of Western Ontario, 1996
Ph.D., University of Western Ontario, 2001
Postdoctoral Fellow, Vanderbilt University, 2001-2004

Research Interests

My research is involved with discovering the neural mechanisms underlying human object recognition and representation. I use a combination of experimental techniques, including functional MRI and psychophysics to explore these questions. I see object representations as multi-sensory. In other words, object representations are sensory in nature, as opposed to being amodal constructs, and object representations are not uni-sensory (e.g., purely visual). Multi-sensory object representations are conceived as an ecological solution for various cognitive phenomena such as object perception and memory and the storage and retrieval of semantic knowledge.

Representative Publications

James, T.W. and Blake, R. (2004). Perceiving object motion using vision and touch. Cognitive, Affective and Behavioral Neuroscience, 4: 201-207.

James, T.W. and Gauthier, I. (2003). Auditory and action semantic features activate sensory-specific perceptual brain regions. Current Biology, 13: 1792-1796.

James, T.W., Culham, J.C., Humphrey, G.K., Milner, A.D., and Goodale, M.A. (2003). Ventral occipital lesions impair object recognition but not object-directed grasping: A fMRI study. Brain, 126: 2463-2475.

James, T.W., Humphrey, G.K., Gati, J.S., Menon, R.S., and Goodale, M.A. (2002). Differential effects of viewpoint on object-driven activation in dorsal and ventral streams. Neuron, 35: 793-801.

James, T.W., Humphrey, G.K., Gati, J.S., Servos, P., Menon, R.S., and Goodale, M.A. (2002). Haptic study of three-dimensional objects activates extrastriate visual areas. Neuropsychologia, 40: 1706-1714.

James, T.W., Humphrey, G.K., Gati, J.S., Menon, R.S., and Goodale, M.A. (2000). The effects of visual object priming on brain activation before and after recognition. Current Biology, 10: 1017-1024.