Catherine Dowell is a PhD candidate in the School of Psychology at the University of Southern Mississippi working with Dr. Alen Hajnal.
She is currently interested in studying the perception of novel 3-D objects, and the acquisition and utilization of affordance perception of complex objects. To study this, she uses unique objects known as “feelies”, which were originally developed by James J. Gibson, to determine how perceived affordances are influenced by changes in modality, exploratory activity, and object characteristics. She is also interested in how perceptual abilities (in particular, affordance perception), can develop and change through learning and aging. She obtained her BS in Psychology, and her MS in Psychological Science at Western Kentucky University.