Andrew Herbert Headshot

Andrew Herbert

Professor

Department of Psychology
College of Liberal Arts

585-475-4554
Office Hours
Mondays 2 to 3:30 pm, Thursdays 2 to 3 pm, and by appointment.
Office Location

Andrew Herbert

Professor

Department of Psychology
College of Liberal Arts

Education

BS, McGill University (Canada); MA, Ph.D., University of Western Ontario (Canada)

Bio

Dr. Herbert’s research interests lie in visual perception and related fields. He has published on different visual illusions, spent a lot of time trying to understand the perception of bilateral symmetry, and is interested in the timing and cortical loci of different perceptual and cognitive processes. The list of publications you can see below on this page is very wrong. You should go to https://people.rit.edu/amhgss/ to see something slightly more accurate. 

Dr. Herbert’s work with students includes research on the perception of faces and facial expressions. 

Dr. Herbert is a member of the Multidisciplinary Vision Research Lab (MVR Lab) housed in the Carlson Center for Imaging Science at RIT. This interdisciplinary lab hosts researchers in Psychology, Imaging Science, computing and the NTID. 

Dr. Herbert received a B.Sc. in Biology from McGill University in Montreal, specializing in neurobiology. He completed an M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Western Ontario in Psychology. His advisor was the late (and greatly missed) Keith Humphrey. Dr. Herbert was a postdoctoral fellow for two years at Glasgow Caledonian University in Scotland working with Daphne McCulloch (Vision Sciences) and Eric Brodie (Psychology). This was followed by a postDoc with Jocelyn Faubert at the Ecole d’Optométrie, Université de Montréal. His first faculty appointment was at the University of North Texas (Denton, TX) in the Department of Psychology. He ran the Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, and collaborated with colleagues at UNT and TCU.

Dr. Herbert has been at RIT since 2002. From December 2008 to January 2017 Dr. Herbert was Chair of the Department of Psychology. He served as Associate Dean in the College of Liberal Arts from 2017 to 2019. Now he's "just" a Professor..

For more paper and presentation details see: http://people.rit.edu/amhgss/

585-475-4554

Personal Links
Areas of Expertise

Select Scholarship

Published Conference Proceedings
Casamassima, Enzo, Andrew Herbert, and Cory Merkel. "Exploring CNN features in the context of adversarial robustness and human perception." Proceedings of the SPIE Optical Engineering + Applications, 2021, San Diego, California, United States. Ed. Novak, Matt. San Diego, CA: n.p., 2021. Print.
McGurgan, Kevin, et al. "Graph Design: The Data-ink Ratio and Expert Users." Proceedings of the Proceedings of the 16th International Joint Conference on Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics Theory and Applications - IVAPP,. Ed. Christophe Hurter, et al. ONLINE, Protugal: n.p., 2021. Web.
Journal Paper
Sutton, Tina M., Andrew M. Herbert, and Dailyn Q. Clark. "Valence, Arousal, and Dominance Ratings for Facial Stimuli." Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 72. 8 (2019): 2046-2055. Print.
Herbert, A. M., et al. "The Casual Role of the Lateral Occipital Complex in Visual Mirror Symmetry Detection and Grouping: An fMRI-guided TMS Study." Cortex 51. (2014): 46-55. Web.
Cattaneo, Z., et al. "Symmetry Detection in Visual Impairment: Behavioral Evidence and Neural Correlates." Symmetry 6. (2014): 427-433. Print.
Herbert, A. M., et al. "Visual Symmetry Perception in Early Onset Monocular Blindness." Visual Cognition 22. (2014): 963-974. Print.
Herbert, Andrew, et al. "Eye Contact and Video-mediated Communication: A Review." Displays 34. 2 (2013): 177-185. Print.
Herbert, Andrew, et al. "The Effect of Vertical and Horizontal Symmetry on Memory for Tactile Patterns in Late Blind Individuals." Attention, Perception & Psychophysics 75. 2 (2013): 375-382. Print.
Bohannon, Leanne S., et al. "Eye Contact and Video-Mediated Communication: A Review." Displays 34. 2 (2015): 177--185. Print.
Bohannon, Leanne S., et al. "Eye Contact and Video-mediated Communication: A Review." Displays. (2012) Print.
Herbert, A.M. "Eye Contact and Video-Mediated Communication." Displays. (2012): Online. Web.
Herbert, A.M. "The Effect of Vertical and Horizontal Symmetry on Memory for Tactile Patterns in Late Blind Individuals." Attention, Perception & Psychophysics 75. 2 (2012): 375-82. Print.
Cattaneo, Z., et al. "The Role of the Human Extrastriate Visual Cortex in Mirror Symmetry Discrimination: A TMS-adaptation Study." Brain and Cognition 77. (2011): 120-127. Print.
Published Review
Herbert, Andrew M. "Book Review." Rev. of The Oxford Handbook of Perceptual Organization, ed. J. Wagemans. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Mar. 2018: 71, 2479-2480. Print.

Currently Teaching

PSYC-224
3 Credits
This course covers perception in all of the sensory modalities (vision, hearing, taste, smell, touch). We will trace what happens to the physical stimulus as our sensory systems analyze it to produce complicated perceptions of the world around us. We will explore the fact that many complex perceptual phenomena draw upon explanations at the physiological, psychological, and cognitive levels. Topics on sensory perception in non-human animals may also be covered. This is a required course for psychology majors in the visual perception track.
PSYC-224H
3 Credits
This course covers perception in all of the sensory modalities (vision, hearing, taste, smell, touch). We will trace what happens to the physical stimulus as our sensory systems analyze it to produce complicated perceptions of the world around us. We will explore the fact that many complex perceptual phenomena draw upon explanations at the physiological, psychological, and cognitive levels. Topics on sensory perception in non-human animals will also be covered as relevant. This honors course will consist of seminar-style discussions of different topics each week, informed by primary sources, and will include independent research in which students explore topics related to perception in greater depth than the standard course.
PSYC-250
3 Credits
This course will serve as an introduction to research methods in psychology, with the goal of understanding research design, analysis and writing. Topics include examining the variety of methods used in psychology research, understanding research ethics, developing empirical hypotheses, designing experiments, understanding statistical concepts, interpreting results, and writing research and review papers in APA style. This is a required course for all psychology majors, and is restricted to students in the psychology program.
PSYC-251
3 Credits
This course will serve as an advanced research methods course in psychology, and will build on the foundational knowledge presented in Research Methods I. Topics and tasks for this course include designing single and multi-factor experiments, interpreting correlational research, completing statistical analyses appropriate to design, completing and analyzing an IRB application, understanding observational and survey research, and presenting results in APA style. This is a required course for all psychology majors, and is restricted to students in the psychology program.
PSYC-255
3 Credits
This course introduces the fundamentals of quantitative and qualitative research methods to equip students to understand and critically assess behavioral science research literature. Students learn about empirically-grounded approaches to knowledge, ethical issues in research, experimental and non-experimental methods, threats to validity and generalizability, general protocols for data-analysis, and standard formats for reporting research.
PSYC-510
3 Credits
This course is intended for students in the psychology major to demonstrate experimental research expertise, while being guided by faculty advisors. The topic to be studied is up to the student, who must find a faculty advisor before signing up for the course. Students will be supervised by the advisor as they conduct their literature review, develop the research question or hypothesis, develop the study methodology and materials, construct all necessary IRB materials, run subjects, and analyze the results of their study. This course will culminate in an APA style paper and poster presentation reporting the results of the research. Because Senior Project is the culmination of a student’s scientific research learning experience in the psychology major, it is expected that the project will be somewhat novel, will extend the theoretical understanding of their previous work (or of the previous work of another researcher), and go well beyond any similar projects that they might have done in any of their previous courses.
PSYC-715
3 Credits
The course is designed to provide students with a deeper understanding of topics in perception. This course will be organized such that students will work in groups on various projects as well as covering topics through readings and classroom discussion. The topics may include, but are not limited to: spatial frequency perception; aftereffects, visual illusions and their relationship to cortical function and pattern perception; color perception; depth and motion perception; higher order perception such as face and object recognition; and music and speech perception. The goal is to cover current research and theories in perception, looking at current developments and their antecedents. The course will be divided into various modules. Students will be assigned readings relevant to each section of the course, and will be expected to master the major concepts. Group discussion of the readings will complement lectures where the instructor will present relevant background material. There will also be laboratory time for the students, where they will examine empirical findings in perception, and develop their research skills in the field.
PSYC-752
3 Credits
The Thesis courses will vary widely but will fulfill the work plan agreed by the student and the adviser. The guiding principles of the Thesis Proposal course are to initiate thesis research including selecting a thesis advisor, choosing and defining a topic, surveying relevant research literature, and planning the research. To complete the course, the student will successfully submit and defend a thesis proposal, which is a detailed and complete plan of the thesis research. The thesis proposal should include exhaustive review of relevant literature, statement of the student's thesis, formulation of hypotheses, operational definitions of independent and dependent variables, and a detailed procedure for carrying out the research. The proposal may also include a section on anticipated results with a detailed plan for analysis of data.
PSYC-753
3 Credits
The Thesis courses will vary widely but will fulfill the work plan agreed by the student and the thesis adviser. The guiding principle of the Thesis course is to complete the thesis research proposed in Thesis Proposal. The Thesis course consists of carrying out the thesis research, including collection and analysis of data, and completion and public defense of the thesis document for partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree.

In the News