Cheryl Olman, Ph.D.

Professor, Department of Psychology

E-MAIL: [email protected] 
Advising Statement: Link
LAB WEBSITE: oliv.psych.umn.edu

Research Interests:

Employing a combination of visual psychophysics and fMRI, I want to determine how detection of local image features interacts with scene perception. How are local features in an image selected and grouped to construct a mental representation of a scene or object? To what extent do internal templates determine feature selection and shape perception?

I also spend time investigating the linkage between what BOLD fMRI measures (changes in blood oxygenation) and what we want to know (the underlying neural activity). Is it the input or the output of a visual area that drives the blood flow response? Are excitation and inhibition always balanced, or can inhibition drive the BOLD response as well as excitation? How do spatial characteristics of vascular regulation distort our view of spatially distributed neural activity?

Selected Publications:

(For a comprehensive list of recent publications, refer to PubMed, a service provided by the National Library of Medicine.)

  • Kamath RS, Weldon KB, Moser HR, Montoya S, Abdullahi KS, Burton PC, Sponheim SR, Olman CA, Schallmo MP. Impaired contour object perception in psychosis. Biol Psychiatry Cogn Neurosci Neuroimaging. 2024 Dec 16:S2451-9022(24)00378-1.
  • Pokorny VJ, Sponheim SR, Olman CA. Orientation-dependent contextual modulation of contrast in schizophrenia. Schizophr Res. 2024 Dec;274:492-500. 
  • Pokorny VJ, Klein SD, Teich C, Sponheim SR, Olman CA, Wilson S. Atypical use of visuospatial context in psychotic psychopathology: a meta-analysis. Schizophrenia Bull. 2024; https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbae081.
  • Olman CA. What multiplexing means for the interpretation of functional MRI data. Front Hum Neurosci. 2023 Apr 6;17:1134811.
  • Schallmo MP, Weldon KB, Kamath RS, Moser HR, Montoya SA, Killebrew KW, Demro C, Grant AN, Marjańska M, Sponheim SR, Olman CA. The psychosis human connectome project: Design and rationale for studies of visual neurophysiology. Neuroimage. 2023 May 15;272:120060.
  • Pokorny VJ, Schallmo MP, Sponheim SR, Olman CA. Weakened untuned gain control is associated with schizophrenia while atypical orientation-tuned suppression depends on visual acuity. J Vis. 2023 Feb 1;23(2):2. 
  • Schallmo MP, Weldon KB, Burton PC, Sponheim SR, Olman CA. Assessing methods for geometric distortion compensation in 7 T gradient echo functional MRI data. Hum Brain Mapp. 2021 Sep;42(13):4205-4223.
  • Pokorny VJ, Lano TJ, Schallmo MP, Olman CA, Sponheim SR. Reduced influence of perceptual context in schizophrenia: behavioral and neurophysiological evidence. Psychol Med. 2021 Apr;51(5):786-794. 
  • Navarro KT, Sanchez MJ, Engel SA, Olman CA, Weldon KB. Depth-dependent functional MRI responses to chromatic and achromatic stimuli throughout V1 and V2. Neuroimage. 2021 Feb 1;226:117520. 
  • Grant AN, Metzger G, Van de Moortele P-F, Adriany G, Olman CA, Zhang L, Koopmeiners J, Eryaman Y, Koeritzer K, Adams M, Henry T, Uğurbil K. 10.5T MRI static field effects on human cognitive, vestibular, and physiological function. Magn Reson Imaging, 73:163-176.
  • Olman CA, Espensen-Sturges T, Muscanto I, Longenecker JM, Burton PC, Grant AN, Sponheim SR. Fragmented ambiguous objects: Stimuli with stable low-level features for object recognition tasks. PLoS One. 2019 Apr 11;14(4):e0215306. 
  • Olman CA, Bao P, Engel SA, Grant AN, Purington C, Qiu C, Schallmo MP, Tjan BS. Hemifield columns co-opt ocular dominance column structure in human achiasma. Neuroimage. 2018 Jan 1;164:59-66.
  •  Qiu C, Burton PC, Kersten D, Olman CA. Responses in early visual areas to contour integration are context dependent. J Vis. 2016 Jun 1;16(8):19. 
  • Schallmo MP, Sponheim SR, Olman CA. Reduced contextual effects on visual contrast perception in schizophrenia and bipolar affective disorder. Psychol Med. 2015 Dec;45(16):3527-3537.
  • Olman CA. What insights can fMRI offer into the structure and function of mid-tier visual areas? Vis Neurosci. 2015 Jan;32:E015. 
  • Thompson SK, Engel SA, Olman CA. Larger neural responses produce BOLD signals that begin earlier in time. Front Neurosci. 2014 Jun 12;8:159.
  • Mannion DJ, Kersten DJ, Olman CA. Regions of mid-level human visual cortext sensitive to the global coherence of local image patches. J Cogn Neurosci. 2014 Aug;26(8):1764-74.
  • Qiu C, Kersten D, Olman CA. Segmentation decreases the magnitude of the tilt illusion. J Vis. 2013 Nov 20;13(13):19.
  • Olman CA, Harel N, Feinberg DA, He S, Zhang P, Ugurbil K, Yacoub E. Layer-specific fMRI reflects different neuronal computations at different depths in human V1. PLoS One. 2012;7(3):e32536. 

Current Students:

Joseph Emerson, Graduate Program in Neuroscience

Former Graduate Students:

Michael Paul Schallmo (Ph.D. 2014, Neuroscience, University of Minnesota).

Jennifer Schumacher (Ph.D. 2010, Neuroscience, University of Minnesota).

Serena Thompson (Ph.D. 2009, Neuroscience, University of Minnesota)

Picture of Cheryl Olman