Staff profile

Research Interest

My research is at the intersection between psychology and neuroscience, I am interested in the properties of the saccadic system trying to establish a low level approach to study the underlying processes guiding eye movements in simple and complex visual scenes.

Main research interests and methods

- Spatial and temporal properties of visually guided saccadic eye-movements.
- Experimental cognitive psychology: Interactions between cognitive processes, visual perception, attention and working memory.
- Voluntary and automatic attentional guidance, covert and overt attention, motor programming.

- Eye tracking (Eyelink II, Eyelink 1000, Dual Purkinje Image Eye-tracker, Cambridge Research System).
- Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS).
- Psychophysics

Memberships

Experimental psychology Society (EPS)

Vision Science Society

Women in Science Database (WISDATABASE)

R-Ladies Global Organization

Women in vision UK 

Conference Paper

• Population averaging in the distorted map of the superior colliculus: A new and simple account of systematic saccadic undershoot
  
  Casteau, S., & Vitu, F. (Eds.). (in press). Population averaging in the distorted map of the superior colliculus: A new and simple account of systematic saccadic undershoot. Presented at The Vision Science Society meeting, Naples, Florida.
• The uncertainty of target location: A tool to explore the neural mechanisms involved in the computation of vertical saccades in humans
  
  Casteau, S., & Vitu, F. (Eds.). (in press). The uncertainty of target location: A tool to explore the neural mechanisms involved in the computation of vertical saccades in humans. Presented at 11th European Conference on Visual Perception, Toulouse, France.
• Mapping the distribution of neural activity in humans’ oculomotor centres: A behavioural study.
  
  Casteau, S., & Vitu, F. (Eds.). (in press). Mapping the distribution of neural activity in humans’ oculomotor centres: A behavioural study. Presented at 16th European Conference on Eye Movements, Marseille, France.
• When to move the eyes: Re-examining alternative accounts in light of human behavioral data
  
  Casteau, S., & Vitu, F. (Eds.). (in press). When to move the eyes: Re-examining alternative accounts in light of human behavioral data. Presented at 17th European Conference on Eye Movements, Lund, Sweden.
• Do the eye-movement system and the arm-movement system contribute independently to attentional orienting: a TMS study
  
  Casteau, S., Hathaway, J., Ellison, A., & Smith, D. T. (Eds.). (in press). Do the eye-movement system and the arm-movement system contribute independently to attentional orienting: a TMS study. Presented at 41st European Conference on Visual Perception (ECVP), Trieste, Italy.
• Is the remote distractor effect on saccade latency greater when the distractor is less eccentric than the target?
  
  Casteau, S., Vitu, F., & Walker, R. (in press). Is the remote distractor effect on saccade latency greater when the distractor is less eccentric than the target?. Presented at 39th European Conference on Visual Perception (ECVP), Barcelona, Spain.
• Can the Cortical Magnification Factor account for the latency increase in the Remote Distractor Effect when the distractor is less eccentric than the target?
  
  Casteau, S., Vitu, F., & Walker, R. (Eds.). (in press). Can the Cortical Magnification Factor account for the latency increase in the Remote Distractor Effect when the distractor is less eccentric than the target?. Presented at 19th European Conference on Eye Movements, Wuppertal, Germany.
• Enhanced fixation activity reduces remote-distractor and global effects
  
  Casteau, S., & Vitu, F. (Eds.). (in press). Enhanced fixation activity reduces remote-distractor and global effects. Presented at 16th European Conference on Eye Movements, Marseille, France.
• Investigating the role of intra-collicular excitatory connections in the generation of vertical saccades: A Human behavioural study
  
  Casteau, S., & Vitu, F. (Eds.). (in press). Investigating the role of intra-collicular excitatory connections in the generation of vertical saccades: A Human behavioural study. Presented at The Vision Science Society meeting, Naples, Florida.
• An attempt to generate vertical saccades with pairs of contralateral stimuli
  
  Casteau, S., & Vitu, F. (Eds.). (in press). An attempt to generate vertical saccades with pairs of contralateral stimuli. Presented at 33rd European Conference on Visual Perception, Lausanne, Switzerland.
• Using Fixed and Mobile Eye Tracking to Understand How Visitors View Art in a Museum: A Study at the Bowes Museum, County Durham, UK
  
  Warwick, C., Beresford, A., Casteau, S., Shum, H. P. H., Smith, D., & Zhang, F. X. (2025, July 14 – 2025, July 18). Using Fixed and Mobile Eye Tracking to Understand How Visitors View Art in a Museum: A Study at the Bowes Museum, County Durham, UK [Conference paper]. Presented at 2025 ADHO Digital Humanities Conference, Lisbon, Portugal.
• The spatio-temporal modulation of saccades in a double-step paradigm.
  
  Casteau, S., & Walker, R. (2015). The spatio-temporal modulation of saccades in a double-step paradigm. In U. Ansorge, T. Ditye, A. Florack, & H. Leder (Eds.), Journal of Eye Movement Research (4th ed.).
• How the distorted representation of visual space in our brain constrains the way we move our eyes.
  
  Casteau, S., Massendar, D., van der Linden, L., & Vitu, F. (Eds.). (2014, August). How the distorted representation of visual space in our brain constrains the way we move our eyes [Conference abstract]. https://doi.org/10.1167/14.10.751
• An image-based population model of human saccade programming in the Superior Colliculus
  
  H., A., S., C., F., V., & G., Z. (Eds.). (2014). An image-based population model of human saccade programming in the Superior Colliculus. Journal of Vision [Conference abstract], 14(10), 1215-1215. https://doi.org/10.1167/14.10.1215

Journal Article

• How does contextual information affect aesthetic appreciation and gaze behavior in figurative and abstract artwork?
  
  Casteau, S., & Smith, D. T. (2024). How does contextual information affect aesthetic appreciation and gaze behavior in figurative and abstract artwork?. Journal of Vision, 24(12), Article 8. https://doi.org/10.1167/jov.24.12.8
• On the link between attentional search and the oculomotor system: is pre-attentive search restricted to the range of eye movements?
  
  Casteau, S., & Smith, D. (2020). On the link between attentional search and the oculomotor system: is pre-attentive search restricted to the range of eye movements?. Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics, 82(2), 518-532. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-019-01949-4
• Covert Attention Beyond the Range of Eye-movements: Evidence for a Dissociation between Exogenous and Endogenous orienting
  
  Casteau, S., & Smith, D. (2020). Covert Attention Beyond the Range of Eye-movements: Evidence for a Dissociation between Exogenous and Endogenous orienting. Cortex, 122, 170-186. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2018.11.007
• Associations and Dissociations between Oculomotor Readiness and Covert Attention
  
  Casteau, S., & Smith, D. (2019). Associations and Dissociations between Oculomotor Readiness and Covert Attention. Vision, 3(2), Article 17. https://doi.org/10.3390/vision3020017
• The effect of offset cues on saccade programming and covert attention
  
  Smith, D., & Casteau, S. (2019). The effect of offset cues on saccade programming and covert attention. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 72(3), 481-490. https://doi.org/10.1177/1747021818759468
• The magnification-factor accounts for the greater hypometria and imprecision of larger saccades: Evidence from a parametric human-behavioral study
  
  Vitu, F., Casteau, S., Adeli, H., Zelinsky, G., & Castet, E. (2017). The magnification-factor accounts for the greater hypometria and imprecision of larger saccades: Evidence from a parametric human-behavioral study. Journal of Vision, 17(4:2), 1-38. https://doi.org/10.1167/17.4.2
• On the limited effect of stimulus boundaries on saccade metrics.
  
  Tandonnet, C., Casteau, S., & Vitu, F. (2013). On the limited effect of stimulus boundaries on saccade metrics. Journal of Vision, 13(12), 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1167/13.12.13
• On the effect of remote and proximal distractors on saccadic behavior: A challenge to neural-field models
  
  Casteau, S., & Vitu, F. (2012). On the effect of remote and proximal distractors onsaccadic behavior: A challenge to neural-field models. Journal of Vision, 12(12), 1-33. https://doi.org/10.1167/12.12.14