WFU Psychology

Jim Schirillo

[schirija@wfu.edu] Professor of Psychology (336) 758-4233 Courses Taught Education Major Area Research Interests Scholarly Interests   Click Here for a List of Publications including PDF's

For more information on courses taught, visit these sites:

	Psychological Utopias FYS100: psych.wfu.edu/utopias_schirillo
	Attachment Theory FYS100: psych.wfu.edu/attachment_schirillo
	Introductory Psychology PSY151: psych.wfu.edu/psy151schirillo
	History and Systems PSY313: psych.wfu.edu/psy313schirillo
	Physiological Psychology PSY320: psych.wfu.edu/psy320schirillo
	Perception PSY329: psych.wfu.edu/psy329schirillo
	Psychology of Art (MALS): psych.wfu.edu/art_schirillo

Education

	B.A. Franklin & Marshall College, 1979
	Ph.D., Experimental Psychology, Northeastern University, 1990

Research interests:

I work in four research areas that examine how humans perceive the external world.

The perception of color and illumination: I use specialized computer equipment to generate colored perceptual illusions of either 2- or 3-dimensional scenes to determine how illumination affects the colors we see.

	Heckman, G.M., Muday, J.A., & Schirillo, J.A. (2005). Chromatic shadow-compatibility and cone-excitation ratios. The Journal of the Optical Society of America: A, 22, 401-415. [PDF]
	Perkins, K.R., & Schirillo, J.A. (2003). Three-dimensional spatial grouping affects estimates of the illuminant. The Journal of the Optical Society of America: A, 20, 2246-2253. [PDF]

Multi-sensory integration: I study how humans combine sights and sounds into a single, unified experience. This is exemplified by the way a ventriloquist can trick us into perceiving that their voice is coming from the location of a dummy's mouth. I also do some related work with Dr. Ramnarayan Ramachandran at Bowman Gray’s Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy. His work involves parallel animal and neurophysiological studies involving the superior colliculus.

	Mayes, A., & Schirillo, J. (2005). Lights can reverse illusory directional hearing. Neuroscience Letters, 384(3), 336-338.[PDF]
	Wallace, M.T., Roberson, G.E., Hairston, W.B., Stein, B.E., Vaughan, J.W., & Schirillo, J.A. (2004). Unifying multisensory signals across time and space. Experimental Brain Research, 158(2), 252-258. [PDF]

Gestalt grouping principles: I study the Gestalt grouping principles, such as how the proximity and similarity of colored dots interact depending on their spatial arrangement. I do this work in collaboration with the Dr. Michael Kubovy from the Psychology Department at the University of Virginia.

	Schirillo, J.A. (2009). The Anatomical Locus of T-Junction Processing. Vision Research, 49, 2011–2025. [PDF]
	Melfi, T. & Schirillo, J. (2000). T-junctions in inhomogeneous surrounds. Vision Research, 40, 3735-3741. [PDF]

Aesthetic Preferences: My interest in aesthetics follows from my work in perception. I use an eye-tracker to determine how the hemispheric laterality of the human brain influences judgments of the emotional content of portraits painted by Rembrandt. I also study the works of the abstract artist Mondrian.

	Plumhoff, J.E. & Schirillo, J.A. (2009). Mondrian, eye movements, and the oblique effect. Perception, 38, 719-731. [PDF]
	Schirillo, J., & Fox, M. (2006). Rembrandt’s portraits: Approach or avoid? Leonardo, 39(3), 253-256. [PDF]

Scholarly Interests:

	Psychophysics
	Color Perception
	Gestalt Psychology
	Multisensory Integration
	Aesthetics