Current research centers on four projects. The first project investigates the perception of flavors. Flavor perception is first and foremost a multisensory phenomenon, as signals from olfaction, taste, and somatosensation combine to mediate the gamut of flavors of foods and beverages.  Our research aims at understanding how these sensory signals, especially signals from olfaction and taste, combine and interact in the flavor system.  Many of these studies capitalize on a Pierce-designed and Pierce-built computerized delivery system that automatically controls the flow of liquid flavorants to the mouth of the subject, allowing precise control of the timing of both the stimuli presented and the subject's responses.

A second project investigates the role of stimulus context in perception. Although often attributed to processes of decision and judgment, findings in our laboratory imply that contextual effects in hearing, taste, smell, and flavor perception can reflect adaptation-like changes in perceptual systems, and our research aims at elucidating the underlying mechanisms.

A third project investigates interactions between stimuli presented to different sensory modalities, mainly vision and hearing. For example, an irrelevant auditory stimulus may alter the speed and accuracy of responses made to visual stimuli. The goal of this third project is to determine to what extent, if any, these cross-modal interactions depend on linguistic or other cognitive processes, as opposed to lower-level sensory processes.

The fourth project investigates synesthesia: A small portion of the population reports unusual sensory experiences. A synesthetic individual may perceive letters or numbers to have colors, or may perceive sounds or flavors to have shapes. Although its existence has been known for more than two centuries, the mechanisms responsible for synesthesia are still poorly understood.  The goal of this fourth project is to elucidate the sensory and cognitive mechanisms that underlie synesthetic perception, and for their possible role in cross-sensory interactions that are evidenced in non-synesthetic perceivers.

Marks, L.E. (1974). Sensory Processes: The New Psychophysics. New York : Academic Press.

Marks, L.E. (1978). The Unity of the Senses: Interrelations among the Modalities. New York: Academic Press.

Marks, L.E. (2004).  Cross-modal interactions in speeded classification.  In G. Calvert , C. Spence , and B.E. Stein (Eds.), The Handbook of Multisensory Processes. Cambridge , MA : MIT Press, pp. 85-106.

Marks, L.E. , & Odgaard, E.C. (2005). Developmental constraints on theories of synesthesia. In L.C. Robertson and N. Sagiv (Eds.), Synesthesia: Perspectives from Cognitive Neuroscience. New York : Oxford University Press, pp. 214-236.

Marks, L.E. , & Arieh, Y. (2006).  Differential effects of stimulus context in sensory processing.  European Review of Applied Psychology, 56, 213-221.

Marks, L.E. , Elgart, B.Z. , Burger, K., & Chakwin, E.M. (2008). Human flavor perception: Application of information integration theory. Teorie & Modelli, 12, 121-132.

Arieh, Y., & Marks, L.E. (2008). Cross-modal interaction between vision and hearing: A speed-accuracy analysis. Perception & Psychophysics, in press.