🚨 Last publication alert of 2025! Why is scene understanding easier and faster for some scenes than for others? Here, we explore whether scenes with too much information slow visual processing. 1/

Bridges can anchor communities as landmarks and even tourist destinations, blend into their environment unnoticed, or they can be eyesores. What determines the aesthetic quality of bridges? Mei Yang, @damianoc.bsky.social, Paul Gauvreau, and I explore this question here: doi.org/10.1371/jour...

Spread the word: I'm looking to hire a postdoc to explore the concept of attention (as studied in psych/neuro, not the transformer mechanism) in large Vision-Language Models. More details here: lindsay-lab.github.io/2025/12/08/p... #MLSky #neurojobs #compneuro

Dimensionality reduction may be the wrong approach to understanding neural representations. Our new paper shows that across human visual cortex, dimensionality is unbounded and scales with dataset size—we show this across nearly four orders of magnitude. journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...

Registration for TASC 2026 is now open! sites.google.com/view/tasc2026/ forms.gle/YFENqo6rSd5F... Keynote speakers: Kalina Christoff Hadjiilieva and Gerald Cupchik Register by January 16th!

“People don’t just want to enjoy the superficial qualities of an artwork: the lines and the colours. They want to have a deeper connection with it," says @dirkbwalther.bsky.social. www.thestar.com/entertainmen...

@thestar.com has an interesting article today about aesthetics and beauty, for which @joshuachong.bsky.social interviewed my about the psychology of aesthetics: www.thestar.com/entertainmen... (archive version: archive.ph/1yTOe) @uoftpsychology.bsky.social

Energy efficiency drives evolution, and humans may have evolved pleasure-based signals to optimize actions. Does this extend to aesthetic pleasure? Yes! Strong evidence in silico and humans, out in PNAS Nexus: tinyurl.com/3kbu8xw4 With Yikai Tang and Wil Cunningham. @uoftpsychology.bsky.social

What makes visual stimuli memorable? Wilma Bainbridge, @keisukefukuda.bsky.social, Lore Goetschalckx, and I investigate the role of processing fluency for memorability in a new review paper in Nature Reviews Psychology. Check it out! rdcu.be/eSyjz

Memorability of visual stimuli and the role of processing efficiency Very cool review on image memorability (hint: priority coding is key) by Wilma Bainbridge, @dirkbwalther.bsky.social @keisukefukuda.bsky.social, Lore Goetschalckx rdcu.be/eSyjz

Very pleased to share that our article on preferences for complexity at different levels of order is now out in PACA! 🎉Not all types of complexity were appreciated similarly, but all were liked better under high order! 🔗 doi.org/10.1037/aca0... 📄 osf.io/preprints/ps... @gestaltrevision.bsky.social

Exciting update: The Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour and Cognitive Science (CSBBCS) will host its 2026 Meeting at York University,(June 1–3, 2026), followed by the Cognition and Action Satellite Workshop (June 4–5). @jdcrawford.bsky.social @yorku-cian.bsky.social www.yorku.ca/research/cia...

Out of a record 662 applications from students at 178 different high schools in Ontario, 60 young learners were invited to participate in the free two-week program @utoronto.ca designed to advance equity, diversity, inclusivity & accessibility in psychology & post-secondary education.

Who's afraid of AI? toronto2025.ai

Hi #canadian researchers - please sign this petition to help ensure funding isn’t cut to tri council agencies (NSERC, SSHRC, and CIHR). We’re looking at potential 15% cuts to ALL federal spending including grants win.newmode.net/canadianasso...

How do our senses contribute to food enjoyment? We answer this question in a new review paper. The paper started as a final project in an undergraduate seminar on neuroaesthetics in 2023. I am so proud of the students and their hard work! cjur.ca/wp-content/u... @uoftpsychology.bsky.social

"style is more than just an optional add-on for visual objects: it is part of visual processing and has consequences for how we perceive and respond to what we see"

How well do traditional attention theories generalize to complex scene features? @songaeun.bsky.social, @drmack.bsky.social & @dirkbwalther.bsky.social used AI-generated stimuli to find out. 👀 www.psych.utoronto.ca/news/using-g...

The Cognitive Science Research Community (CoRC) at the University of Toronto has several exciting events in store this year: www.uc.utoronto.ca/cognitive-sc... Join us for science and good company!

Announcing the Toronto Aesthetics Sciences and Creativity Conference 2026! TASC 2026 brings together researchers, scholars, and students from across the Greater Toronto Area with interest in empirical aesthetics, psychology of art, and the study of creativity. sites.google.com/view/tasc2026/

A new study uses AI-generated stimuli to uncover attention to complex scene features. Read more in a post by @ankosov.bsky.social on a new #psynomAPP paper by @songaeun.bsky.social, @drmack.bsky.social, and @dirkbwalther.bsky.social buff.ly/2So7ndD

Commentaries for Marcos Nadal's and my recent paper "Can arts-based interventions improve health? A conceptual and methodological critique" have begun to roll in. To keep track of them I am starting this thread. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Here's a link to freely access my recent comment on debates in arts and health research. Yes free. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Happy Canada Day, tout le monde! 🇨🇦

@mskov01.bsky.social and @mnadal.bsky.social recently reviewed arts-based interventions: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... I got the opportunity to write a comment: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... TLDR: ABIs hold some promise but must be tested with the same rigor as other treatments.

Our computer vision textbook is now available for free online here: visionbook.mit.edu We are working on adding some interactive components like search and (beta) integration with LLMs. Hope this is useful and feel free to submit Github issues to help us improve the text!

Excited to share my 1st Bluesky post: 2 studies reveal age biases in other-race face perception using GAN reconstruction and EEG. Congratulations to @moazshoura.bsky.social for this research - in collaboration with @dirkbwalther.bsky.social | www.eurekalert.org/news-release...

How fast do we extract distance cues from scenes 🛤️🏞️🏜️ and integrate them with retinal size 🧸🐻 to infer real object size? Our new EEG study in Cortex has answers! w/ @dkaiserlab.bsky.social @suryagayet.bsky.social @peelen.bsky.social Check it out: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

With the usual caveats of the need for more and better studies. Yet, the evidence does support the use of some kinds of art in clinical spaces. 🧪A Room with a View (of Art) | Psychology Today www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/brai...

What features guide visual search for complex scenes? In her new APP paper, @songaeun.bsky.social uses scenes generated with a GAN to isolate features that guide search: layout, material properties, and lighting. rdcu.be/elPgO @drmack.bsky.social @macklab.bsky.social @uoftpsychology.bsky.social

Western University is seeking applications for Canada Excellence Research Chairs. Please reach out if you are interested in Theme 2: Neuroscience. Western has extraordinary strengths in cognitive, molecular and systems neuroscience across species (rodents, NHPs, humans) uwo.ca/research/cer...

Excited for the Balas Lab to be part of the Plains Art Museum's Spring Gala tonight! This year's theme is "Color Flings" and we'll be there to showcase some of our #VisionScience research (with @dirkbwalther.bsky.social ) investigating the patterns and colors kids think match different emotions.

Marcos Nadal and I are pleased to announce that our new paper, "The sensory valuation account of aesthetic experience", is now out in Nature Reviews Psychology. www.nature.com/articles/s44...

It was truly inspiring to see the range of aesthetics research at TASC 2025. Great talks and a tour of the art collection at Simcoe Hall. Read more about it here: psych.utoronto.ca/news/what-do... @uoftpsychology.bsky.social @uc-uoft.bsky.social @uoftartsci.bsky.social @uoft.bsky.social

On this day 2y ago we announced our move away from the huge profits that NeuroImage makes for Elsevier. Things at Imaging Neuroscience have progressed fantastically thanks to the support for this move by the brain imaging community and @mitpress.bsky.social. 565 papers published already!

Creativity as aesthetics in reverse? How does the Mirror Model of Art hold up when seen through the lens of neuroscience? It doesn't. New paper with Oshin Vartanian, Delaram Farzanfar and Pablo Tinio in Neuropsychologia. doi.org/10.1016/j.ne... @uoftpsychology.bsky.social @uoft.bsky.social

I have an opening for a graduate student at @carleton.ca (Carleton University) in the Department of Cognitive Science for fall 2025. Project is a multimodal MRI study examining how Hearing Loss affects cognition in older adults - contact me with a CV if you’re interested & have relevant expertise!

Thought-provoking new study from @giacomobignardi.bsky.social et al.

Excited to share on my first post on Bluesky our new paper in NHB examine the innate and developing aspects of the wiring of the visual system. Congratulations to @emilykubota.bsky.social and the baby MRI team on this important work

Absolutely delighted to see that one of my favorite researchers, longtime colleague, and friend, Jody Culham, @culhamari-lab.bsky.social is the recipient of the 2025 Davida Teller Award from the Vision Sciences Society @vssmtg.bsky.social. So well-deserved. 🧪🧠 www.visionsciences.org/2025-davida-...

🧠 Sadly missed the a.m. sessions, but managed to catch @edwardvessel.bsky.social’s lightning talk about his @cuny.edu lab’s great work “Using Personalized Deep Neural Networks to Model the Effect of Category Learning on Internal Representations of Art” #neuroaesthetics #artsky #psychsky #neurosky

When cherished beliefs and intuitions turn out to not be confirmed. Not a lot of difference in the impact of art seen in museums versus on a screen in the lab. Reasons to actually test intuitions. With @kohinoordarda.bsky.social and others. 🧪 #sciart www.nature.com/articles/s41...

"Healthy participants (N = 49) receiving electrical shocks report lower pain when exposed to virtual nature compared to matched urban or indoor control settings". Cool new imaging study by Steininger et al. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Happy to share our paper on the #AestheticsToolbox around the #QIP-Machine has been published #OpenAccsess in Behavior Research Methods! It can can be used to easily and transparently compute a wide range of quantitative image properties for digital images 📸 📄 link.springer.com/article/10.3...

My favorite remote conference is coming back this year, and we are looking for a postdoc to join the team of organizers! If you LOVE working memory research and its wonderful community, join us!

Queer neuroscientists: Be gay, love dendritic spines

I'm hiring a full-time research assistant to start this Summer! The lab studies perception and cognition from infancy to adulthood using neuroimaging, behavioral, and computational approaches For more details about the lab and the position, see: vlad-lab.com/join #psychjobs #neurojobs

VSAC 2025: Call for abstracts and symposia! Submit your proposal at 2025.vsac.eu/submission We look forward to hearing about your work! #art #science #visualartofscience #conference #vsac #visualart #artscience #illusionart

I feel this is converging evidence for the recent wonderful work from @dirkbwalther.bsky.social on the beauty/pleasure of photographs (osf.io/preprints/ps...). 🥳 Stay tuned for our preprint!