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Research in the VASC group is concerned both with behavioural and neural correlates of human visual perception and action and spatial cognition.

Research on vision and action involves studies with both healthy people and patients with specific deficits following brain damage such as stroke, allowing unique insights into the functioning of visuo-motor control in the normal brain to be made. Through experimental task manipulations, both in patients and neurologically healthy people, we establish how these processes operate and how they interact. Through brain scanning areas, we are able to localise brain areas that have specific functions in the interaction between perception and action. This research contributes to our understanding of brain and behaviour, but also allows us to make recommendations for treatment of disorders suffered by brain-damaged individuals.

Work on spatial cognition is centred around the Usability of Spatial Environments (USE) group - a joint initiative between CoCo and the School of the Built and Natural Environment. USE focuses on how people find their way around their environments and form representations (‘cognitive maps’) of them. Studies are conducted with both non-clinical and clinical populations, using virtual and real environments.