Support

Research in the Active Perception Laboratory is supported from federal grants, industry collaborations, and private donations. Grants are used to cover the salaries of students and lab staff, conduct research, develop new instruments, and maintain facilities. Since its foundation, researchers in the laboratory have raised more than $15M in research grants. By means of this support, work in the laboratory has contributed trainining new generations of students and researchers and elucidating fundamental principles of visual functions (see a list of selected findings).  
Please contact the lab's Principal Investigators if you are interested in helping fulfill our research and educational missions via a donation.  


Federal grants

The Active Perception Laboratory has received multiple grants from the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation. Major grants include:  

  • R01 EY018363: Function of fixation instability during natural viewing. National Institutes of Health (8/1/22-7/31/26). Rucci (PI)
  • R01 EY029788: Vision, Attention and eye movements at the scale of the foveola. National Institutes of Health (2/1/19-1/31/24). Poletti (PI)
  • R01 EY018363: Function of fixation instability during natural viewing. National Institutes of Health (6/1/17-5/31/22). Rucci (PI)
  • F31 EY029565: Function of fixational eye movements for fine depth perception. National Institutes of Health (9/1/18-8/31/21). Intoy (PI)
  • BCS-1534932: Controlling Attention Within the Fovea. National Science Foundation (09/2015-09/2019). Poletti (PI)
  • BCS-1457238: Influence of head and eye movements on retinal input and early neural encoding. National Science Foundation (08/2015-07/2019). Rucci (PI)
  • NSF 1420212: Move to see: The benefits of self-motion for visual perception. National Science Foundation (part of an international collaboration with the Netherland (Brenner,PI) and the UK (Rushton, PI); 4/14-3/18) Rucci (PI)
  • R01 EY018363: Function of fixation instability during natural viewing. National Institutes of Health (9/13-8/17). Rucci (PI)
  • BCS-1127216: Influence of head and eye movements on visual input statistics and early neural representations. National Science Foundation (9/11-8/15) Rucci (PI)
  • R01 EY018363: Function of fixation instability during natural viewing. National Institutes of Health (9/12-8/13). Rucci (PI)
  • ARRA supplement to R01 EY018363: Function of fixation instability during natural viewing. National Institutes of Health (9/09-8/11). Rucci (PI)
  • IOS-0843304: Collaborative Research: Decorrelation of natural inputs in lateral geniculate nucleus of behaving monkeys. National Science Foundation (5/09-4/14) Rucci & Snodderly (PIs)
  • R01 EY018363: Function of fixation instability during natural viewing. National Institutes of Health (9/07-8/12). Rucci (PI)
  • CCF-0726901: Active depth perception in primates and machines. National Science Foundation (9/07-8/10) Rucci (PI)
  • BCS-0719849: Influence of eye movements on visual input statistics and early neural representations. National Science Foundation (9/07-8/10) Rucci (PI)
  • CCF-0726901: Depth perception in primates and machines. National Science Foundation (9/04-8/07) Rucci (PI)
  • R01 EY015732: Function of fixation instability during natural viewing. National Institutes of Health (9/04-8/07). Rucci (PI)
  • EIA-0130851: Fixational eye movements in biological and artificial vision systems. National Science Foundation (9/01-8/05) Rucci (PI)

The laboratory has also received multiple supplements to these grants to foster the involvement of undergraduate students in research. Many undergraduates have spent internships, ranging from summer months to full-year periods.


Industry collaborations

As part of our research, we have established strong collaborations with the industry, particularly Meta/Facebook Reality Labs. This source of support has helped us improve our equipment and seed high-risk/high-reward projects that would otherwise be difficult to pursue. Major grants include:  

  • Spatiotemporal dynamics of foveal and extrafoveal priority maps. Meta/Facebook Reality Labs (03/20-03/22). Poletti (PI)
  • Dynamics of visual processing. Meta/Facebook Reality Labs (11/18-11/22). Rucci (PI)
  • A database of high-resolution eye movement data. Meta/Facebook Reality Labs (11/18-11/22). Rucci (PI)
  • Symposium on Active Vision, Rochester, May 2022. Donation from a major technological company (anonymity requested). Rucci (PI)
  • Development of a digital dual-Purkinje-imaging (dDPI) eye-tracker. Grant from a major technological company (anonymity requested; 6/19-12/21). Rucci (PI)


Other funding sources

Several other sources of funding have supported our activities, including the ones listed below. The laboratory was initially opened via a start-up fund from Boston University and greatly expanded by means of a start-up fund from the University of Rochester. Other notable grants and projects in which the laboratory participates include:  

  • 2021 Sloan research fellowship in neuroscience. Poletti (PI)
  • NRT-HDR: Interdisciplinary graduate training in the science, technology, and applications of augmented and virtual reality. National Science Foundation (09/19-08/24). Rucci (coPI)
  • University of Rochester seed grant: Microsaccade differences in psychosis and their contribution to abnormal vision (07/2021-07/2022). Keane/Poletti (PIs)
  • Platypus: Plasticity of perceptual space under sensorimotor interactions. A Marie Curie research and innovation staff exchange grant with 6 partners in Europe and Australia (7/17-6/22). Poletti/Rucci (coPIs)
  • University of Rochester seed grant: Neural mechanisms of foveal vision (6/19-5/20). Mitchell/Rucci (PIs)