James Gordon

Professor Emeritus

James Gordon is a emeritus professor in the Department of Psychology.

Educational Background

PhD, Brown University

Areas of Research

I am interested in the processing of color and form information by the visual system. Recent work has focused on the nature of parallel pathways in humans which are responsible for encoding and transmitting this information, the development of these pathways from infancy through adulthood, and changes in these pathways due to pathologies including autism, schizophrenia, and glaucoma. Psychophysical experiments utilize hue scaling and contrast sensitivity measures while physiological studies use the visual evoked potential to study the development and deficits of these pathways.

Selected Publications

Brittenham, C., Gordon, J., Zemon, V. M., & Siper, P. M. (2021). Objective frequency analysis of transient visual evoked potentials in autistic children. Autism Research, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.2654
Herrera,S, Zemon, V., Revheim, N.,Silipo, G., Gordon, J., Butler, P. (2021) Cognitive function mediates the relationship between visual contrast sensitivity and functional outcome in schizophrenia, Journal of Psychiatric Research, 144, 138-145, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2021.09.055.

Nunez, V., Gordon, J. & Shapley, R. (2021) A multiplicity of color-responsive cortical mechanisms revealed by the dynamics of cVEPs. Vision Research, 188, 234-245. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.visres.2021.07.017
Siper, P.M., Rowe, B.A., Guillory, S.B., Rouhandeh, A.A., George-Jones, J., Tavassoli, T., Lurie, S. Zweifach, J. Weissman, J., Foss-Feig, J., Halpern, D., Trelles, M.P., Mulhern, M.S., Brittenham, C., Gordon, J., Zemon, V., Buxbaum, J., Kolevzon, A. (2021) Visual evoked potential abnormalities in Phelan-McDermid syndrome Journal of the American Academy of Child and AdolescentPsychiatry. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2021.07.006
Zemon V, Herrera S, Gordon J, Revheim N, Silipo G, Butler PD. (2021) Contrast sensitivity deficits in schizophrenia: A psychophysical investigation. Eur J Neurosci. 2021;53:1155–1170. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejn.15026.
Grose-Fifer, J., Lobel, M., diFilipo, D., & Gordon, J. (2020) Low Spatial Frequency Sensitivity and Emotional Face Processing in Adolescents: An Event-related Potential Study, Developmental Neuropsychology, DOI: 10.1080/87565641.2020.1789144 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2019.04.001.
Shapley, R., Nunez, V., & Gordon, J. (2019). Cortical double-opponent cells and human color perception. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 30, 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2019.04.001.
Vagell, R., Vagell, V., Jacobs, R.L., Gordon, J. & Baden, A. (2018) SMARTA: Automated testing apparatus for visual discrimination tasks. Behavior Research Methods. Eprint, Sept. 5, 2018. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-018-1113-9.
Zemon, V. & Gordon, J. (2018) Quantification and Statistical Analysis of the Transient Visual Evoked Potential to a Contrast-Reversing Pattern: A Frequency-Domain Approach. European Journal of Neuroscience 48(4), 1765-1788. DOI: 10.1111/ejn.14049.
Nunez, V., Shapley, R.M. & Gordon, J. (2018) i-Perception. Cortical double-opponent cells in color perception:Perceptual Scaling and chromatic visual evoked potentials. 9, 1-16.Nunez, V., Shapley, R.M. & Gordon, J. (2017) Journal of Vision. Nonlinear dynamics of cortical responses to color in the human cVEP. 17 (11), 9-13. doi: 10.1167/17.11.9
Nunez, V., Shapley, R.M. & Gordon, J. (2017) Journal of Vision. Nonlinear dynamics of cortical responses to color in the human cVEP. 17 (11), 9-13. doi: 10.1167/17.11.9.
Siper, P. M., Zemon, V., Gordon, J., George-Jones, J., Lurie, S., Zweifach, J., Tavassoli, T., Wang, A. T., Jamison, J., Buxbaum, J. D., & Kolevzon, A. (2016). Rapid and Objective Assessment of Neural Function in Autism Spectrum Disorder Using Transient Visual Evoked Potentials. PLoS ONE., 11, 1-15. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0164422.
Xing, D., Ouni, A., Chen, S., Sahmoud, H., Gordon, J. & Shapley R.M. (2015) Brightness-Color Interactions in human early visual cortex. Journal of Neuroscience. 35 (5), 2226-2232. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3740-14.2015.
Weinger, P.M. , Zemon, V., Soorya, L., and Gordon, J. (2014) Low-contrast response deficits and increased neural noise in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Neuropsychologia. 63, 10-18. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2014.07.031.
Xing, D.1., Yeh, C.I., Gordon, J. & Shapley R.M. (2014) Cortical brightness adaptation when darkness and brightness produce different dynamical states in the visual cortex. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. .111(3):1210-5. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1314690111. Epub 2014 Jan 7.
Krinsky-McHale , S.J., Silverman, W., Gordon, J., Devenny, D.A., Oley, N. and Abramov, I. (2013) Vision Deficits in Adults with Down Syndrome. Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, Online. doi:10.1111/jar.12062.
Abramov, I., Gordon, J., Feldman, O. & Chavarga, A. (2012) Sex and Vision II: Color Appearance of Monochromatic Lights. Biology of Sex Differences, DOI: 10.1186/2042-6410-3-21.
Abramov, I., Gordon, J., Feldman, O. & Chavarga, A. (2012) Sex & Vision I: Spatio-temporal Resolution. Biology of Sex Differences, DOI: 10.1186/2042-6410-3-20.
Garcia-Quispe, L., Gordon, J., & Zemon, V. (2009) Development of contrast mechanisms in humans: A VEP study. Optometry and Vision Science. 86, 708-716.
Abramov, I., Gordon, J and Chan, H. (2009) Color appearance: properties of the Uniform Appearance Diagram derived from hue and saturation scaling. Perception and Psychophysics, 71, 632-643.
Abramov, I., and Gordon, J. (2008) Color Vision Panel Tests: A Metric for Interpreting Numeric Analytic Indices. Optometry and Vision Science, 86, 146-152.
Gordon, J. & Abramov, I. (2008) Color Appearance: Maxwellian vs. Newtonian Views. Vision Research, 48, 1879-1883.
Zemon, V., Tsai, J.C., Forbes, M., Al-Aswad, L.A., Chen, C.M., Gordon, J., Greenstein, V.C., Hu, G., Strugstad, E.C., Dhrami-Gavazi, E., & Jindra, L.F. (2008) Novel electrophysiological instrument for rapid and objective assessment of magnocellular deficits associated with glaucoma. Documenta Ophthalmologica, 117, 233-243.
Zemon, V. & Gordon, J. (2006) Luminance Contrast Mechanisms in Humans: Visual Evoked Potentials and a Nonlinear Model. Vision Research. 46, 4163-4180.
Abramov, I. & Gordon, J. (2006) Development of color vision in infants. In R. Duckman (ed.) Visual Development, Diagnosis, and Treatment of the Pediatric Patient, 137-162. Baltimore: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
Gordon, J. & Shapley, R. (2006) Brightness contrast inhibits color induction: Evidence for a new kind of color theory. Spatial Vision, 19, 133-146.
Abramov, I. & Gordon, J. (2005) Seeing unique hues. Journal of the Optical Society of America A, 22, 2143-2153.
Williams, P.E., Mechler, F., Gordon, J., Shapley, R., & Hawken, M.J. (2004) Entrainment to video displays in primary visual cortex of macaque and humans. Journal of Neuroscience, 24, 8278-8288.
Gordon, J. (2004) Measuring Red – or Yellow or Green or Blue. In M. Fehr & S. Wurmfeld (eds.) Seeing Red: On Nonobjective Painting and Color Theory, 164-186. Cologne: Salon Verlag.
Butler, P.D., Schechter, I., Zemon, V., Schwartz, S.G., Greenstein, V.C., Gordon, J., Schroeder, C.E., & Javitt, D.C (2001) Dysfunction of early-stage visual processing in schizophrenia. American Journal of Psychiatry, 158, 1126-1133.
Gordon, J. and Abramov, I. (2001) Color vision. In E.B.Goldstein (ed.), The Blackwell Handbook of Perception, 92-127. Oxford: Blackwell.
Zemon, V., Hartmann, E.E., Gordon, J. and Prünte-Glowazki, A. (1997) An electrophysiological technique for assessment of the development of spatial vision. Optometry and Vision Science, 74, 708-716.

Contact Details

James Gordon

Psychology
68th Street North 604
(212) 772-5619
jgordon@hunter.cuny.edu