Current Projects

MRI Studies of Brain Structure and Function

A set of studies investigating the structure of the brain in individuals with autism spectrum disorders as compared to typically developing controls, as well as areas of the brain that become active while participants are performing various social judgment tasks. Please note: This study is now being conducted at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. You may still contact Yale staff for more information about the study.

Brain Imaging of Baby Siblings

A brain imaging study of infant siblings of children with autism spectrum disorders. Please note: This study is now being conducted at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. You may still contact Yale staff for more information about the study.

Past Projects

Let's Face It! Behavioral and Neural Plasticity in Face Perception

A study to measure how well persons diagnosed with autism spectrum conditions perform on tests of facial identity and facial expression recognition, and to evaluate the effectiveness of a computer-based intervention to remediate face processing deficits. This study is currently closed to new enrollments.

Audio-Visual Integration of Emotional Cues

A study examining emotional processing with more realistic stimuli, using videos that present emotions in both audio and visual form.

Social Attribution Task Movies

Many people have asked for more information about the movies we use in our ongoing social attribution task. The above link leads to several sample movies. You can also request to be granted access to all of our movies, should you need them for research or some other academic purpose.

Studies of Calendar Calculator

Information on a child with an amazing affinity for dates, with a movie showing his calendar calculations

Binocular Rivalry

Pasley, B.N., Mayes, L.C. & Schultz, R.T. (2004). Subcortical discrimination of unperceived objects during binocular rivalry. Neuron, 42, 163-172.

In addition to reading the results of this study, you can view some of the binocular rivalry stimuli below.
       Movie of a suppressed face        Avi format       QuickTime Movie
       Movie of a suppressed chair       Avi format       QuickTime Movie

Nonlinear Estimation and Modeling of fMRI

Outline of the development of a general nonlinear approach for fMRI analysis based on spatio-temporal support vector regression.