David Alais

Professor David Alais is a Professor of Experimental Psychology in the School of Psychology within the Faculty of Science at the University of Sydney. His research specializes in experimental psychology, particularly multisensory processing, audiovisual integration, binocular rivalry, and perceptual suppression mechanisms such as continuous flash suppression. Alais investigates how the brain combines sensory inputs from vision and audition to form coherent perceptions, including phenomena like the ventriloquist effect where auditory cues bias visual localization, and the dynamics of rivalry between competing sensory stimuli. He previously served as an Australian Research Fellow in the School of Psychology from 2005 to 2007.

Alais has produced over 330 peer-reviewed publications, garnering more than 12,596 citations on Google Scholar. Key publications include 'The ventriloquist effect results from near-optimal bimodal integration' (2004, 2,539 citations), 'Fearful expressions gain preferential access to awareness during continuous flash suppression' (2007, 516 citations), 'Multisensory processing in review: From physiology to behaviour' (2010, 438 citations), 'Binocular rivalry' (2005, 382 citations), and recent works such as 'Walking modulates visual detection performance according to stride phase' (2024) and 'A new CFS tracking paradigm reveals uniform suppression depth' (2024). He has received substantial funding from the Australian Research Council, including Discovery Project grants DP130102336 ($410,894), DP0770299 ($590,762), and a $934,240 award in 2025 for 'Eating with our eyes: How does vision shape our food choices?'. His research has impacted perceptual psychology and neuroscience, featured in University of Sydney news on topics like face pareidolia (2021), visual influences on food trends (2024), and the brain's strobing perception (2017). Alais engages the public through seminars such as Lunchbox Science.

Professional Email: david.alais@sydney.edu.au