Current Lab Members
Denis Pelli
Principal Investigator
denispelli.art | denis.pelli [at] nyu [dot] edu
Denis is known for creating the Pelli-Robson Contrast Sensitivity Chart with John Robson, the QUEST procedure with Andrew Watson, and the Psychtoolbox with David Brainard. His research on crowding helped make the topic popular. Work with Najib Majaj and Marialuisa Martelli shows that crowding limits reading speed. Recent work links visual crowding, auditory informational masking, and fMRI measured size of hV4. With a team of developers, he is creating EasyEyes, open-source software to run psychophysical experiments online. He's also had a longstanding interest in what makes things look good and has incorporated beauty research into his work. He studied Applied Math at Harvard, did his PhD with Campbell and Robson in Physiology at Cambridge University, and has been a Professor at NYU since 1995.
Maria Pombo
Ph.D. Student
Website | maria.pombo [at] nyu [dot] edu
Maria’s work brings a quantitative approach to studying individual differences in aesthetic judgments. Her work explores ways to measure and model different types of variance in beauty judgment. She’s also interested in applied aesthetics research, and is currently working on understanding the role of fonts in the relationship between aesthetic judgments of reading (e.g., beauty, comfort) and reading performance (e.g., reading speed and comprehension). She holds a BA in Psychology from Georgetown University.
Ajay Subramanian
Ph.D. Student
Website | ajay.subramanian [at] nyu [dot] edu
Ajay uses psychophysics to probe the differences between human and machine vision. He is currently studying the computations that make human object recognition more robust than neural network recognition, towards building better deep learning systems. He has an undergrad degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from BITS Pilani, India.
Anna Bruns
Ph.D. Student
Website | anna.bruns [at] nyu [dot] edu
Anna studies visual perception, aesthetic experience, and emotion. She is currently investigating the role emotion plays in beauty judgments of images and music. Before grad school she received a BA in applied math from UC Berkeley and spent three years doing data-driven art curation for a company called Minted.
Youjing Luo
Ph.D. Student
Website | youjingluo [at] nyu [dot] edu
Youjing is interested in neuroaesthetics and high-level cognition. She is currently investigating aesthetic experience and face processing using both behavioral experiments and neuroimaging (fMRI, EEG). Her goal is to understand how the brain generates and evaluates human perceptual experiences and their underlying mechanisms. Youjing has a BS in Psychology from East China Normal University in Shanghai, China, and an MA from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Collaborators
Najib Majaj
Research Assistant Professor of Neural Science, New York University
Collaborating on psychophysics and neural correlates of visual crowding and on computer vision.
Marialuisa Martelli
Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Rome La Sapienza
Collaborating on reading and crowding in children.
Sarah Waugh
Reader, Optometry and Vision Sciences, University of Huddersfield
Collaborating on reading and crowding in children.
Jan Kurzawski
Assistant Professor, Maastricht University
Collaborating on psychophysics and neural correlates of visual crowding and retinotopy.
Pablo Ripollés
Assistant Professor of Psychology, New York University; Associate Director, Music and Audio Research Laboratory (MARL)
Collaborating on aesthetic response to music and the relationship between beauty and emotion.
Minjung (MJ) Kim
Research Scientist, Meta
Collaborating on visual crowding, comfort, and aesthetics of reading and typography.
Aleksandra (Sasha) Igdalova
Ph.D. Candidate at Goldsmiths, University of London, supervised by Dr. Rebecca Chamberlain
Collaborating on aesthetic response to visual art, individual differences, and museum applications.
Past Lab Members
Past
Postdoctoral Fellows
Jan Kurzawski
Jan Kurzawski (2020-2024) studies visual crowding using psychophysics and neuroimaging. He is currently an Assistant Professor at Maastricht University, and he has a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Pisa.
Lisa Levinson
Aenne Brielmann
Amy Belfi
Amy Belfi (2015–2018). “fMRI of the experience of beauty.”
A. Ziskind
A. Ziskind (2013-2014). Computational modeling of object recognition.
Matthieu Dubois
Matthieu Dubois (2009-2011) did his PhD thesis on dyslexia at Department of Psychology, Catholic University of Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, 2008. Now postdoc at Laboratoire Cognition, Langage et Développement, Faculté de Psychologie et Sciences de l’Education, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium
Rama Chakravarthi
Rama Chakravarthi (2007–2009) did his PhD thesis on masking of crowding with Patrick Cavanagh. PhD Harvard 2007.
Ragnar Steingrimsson
Ragnar Steingrimsson (2003) “fMRI of letter identification” poster at ECVP. PhD UC Irvine 2002.
Marialuisa Martelli
Marialuisa Martelli (2000–2002) “Are faces processed like words? A diagnostic test for recognition by parts” published in Journal of Vision. PhD University of Rome 2001. Now Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Rome La Sapienza.
Allen Poirson
Allen Poirson (1995) “Learning features from images.” PhD Stanford 1992. Now Principal at CVV venture development.
Frans Cornelissen
Frans Cornelissen (1994) “Effects of visual noise on fMRI response of visual cortex” poster at Human Brain Mapping and “A binocular fiberscope for presenting visual stimuli during fMRI” published in Spatial Vision. PhD Rijksuniversiteit Groningen 1994. Now Universitair Docent [Assistant Professor] at Laboratory for Experimental Ophthalmology, Center for Behavioural, Cognitive and Neurosciences, University of Groningen, The Netherlands.
Joshua Solomon
Joshua Solomon (1992–1993) “The visual channel that mediates letter identification” published in Nature . PhD NYU 1992. Now Professor of Visual Psychophysics Centre for Applied Vision Research, City University London.
Past
Ph.D. Students
Aenne Brielmann
Aenne Brielmann (2015–2020) “Understanding the experience of beauty.” Now postdoc with Peter Dayan at Max Planck Tuebingen, Germany.
Lauren Vale
Sarah Rosen
Sarah Rosen (2007–2012) “Crowding is compulsory unwanted grouping.” 2012 PhD Psychology, NYU. Now CEO and Founder of SeeMore Technology, which is exploiting the patent (pending) that Rosen and Pelli applied for, through NYU, for a simple way to achieve 20% faster reading on electronic displays when gaze tracking is available. Gaze tracking is expected to be a standard feature of coming smartphones.
Ioana Apetroaia
Ioana Apetroaia (1999–2000) “Contrast sensitivity for paintings.” (New School) Now part of the Context-Aware Computing group at MIT. (wikipedia entry)
Joshua Green
Joshua Green (1997) “Crowding in letter identification.” (CNS rotation) PhD Neural Science NYU 2004. Now a resident in Psychiatry at Temple University.
Odelia Schwartz
Odelia Schwartz (1996–1997) “Face identification.” (CNS rotation) PhD Neural Science NYU 2002. Postdoc with Terry Sejnowski at the Salk Institute. Now Assistant Professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
Hannah Bayer
Hannah Bayer (1996–1997) “Face identification.” (CNS rotation) PhD Neural Science NYU 2004. Now postdoc with Elke Weber at the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP) at Columbia University.
Najib Majaj
Najib Majaj (1995–2004) (Co-advised with Tony Movshon) Psychophysics: “The channel for letters” published in Vision Research PhD Neural Science NYU 2004.
J. Nam Yang
J. Nam Yang (1995–1996)“Letter identification.” PhD Psychology NYU 1999. Now Research Associate at NASA Ames Research Center.
Catherine Burns
Catherine Burns (1990–1995) “Identifying letters” published in Vision Research . PhD Syracuse University 1995. Now faculty at Pierce College.
Manoj Raghavan
Manoj Raghavan (1990–1995) “Sources of visual noise” to be submitted to Nature. PhD Syracuse University 1995. Now Assistant Professor of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.
Preeti Verghese
Preeti Verghese (1986–1990) PhD thesis, “The information capacity of visual attention,” published as two papers in Vision Research. PhD Syracuse University 1990. Now Investigator at the Smith Kettlewell Eye Research Institute, San Francisco.
Clayton Van Doren
Clayton Van Doren (1984–1987) (Co-advised with R. T. Verrillo.) PhD thesis, “Measurement and modeling of spatiotemporal tactile sensitivity,” published in Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. PhD Syracuse University 1987. Now doing prosthetics research as Associate Professor of Orthopedics at Case Western Reserve University. And plays euphonium with the Medina Community Band.
Past
Master's Students
Anna Bruns
Anna Bruns (2021–2023) Emotions of subject and object affect beauty differently for images vs. music.
Elizabeth Yue Zhou
Elizabeth Yue Zhou (2020-2022). Effect of eccentricity on beauty, published in Journal of Vision. Now a PhD student at Rutgers University.
Chen Zhao
Chen Zhao (2018–2020) Asymmetric relation between attractiveness and morality.
Marissa Hildebrand
Marissa Hildebrand (2006) Effect of context on reading. Post-baccalaureate student.
Guillermo Hinojosa-Canales
Guillermo Hinojosa-Canales (2000) Visual factors mediating response to Soong Dynasty paintings, MA in Psychology at NYU 2002. Now Professor of Art at the Universidad de Monterrey in Mexico.
Manoj Gunwani
Manoj Gunwani (1993–1994) Network modeling of letter learning. MS in Neuroscience at Syracuse University 1996. MS in Computer Science at Syracuse University. Now designs processors (e.g. Pentium) at Intel, where he is a project leader in the Cell Libraries Development group.
Lan Zhang
Lan Zhang (1988–1990) Measuring contrast sensitivity published in Vision Research . MS in Psychology 1992, MS in Computer Engineering 1994, and PhD in Psychology 1995 at Syracuse University. Now Technical Specialist at AT&T Labs. “I'm working on the User Experience Design for Natural Language Applications. Nowadays, when you call, you often ‘talk’ to a machine: ‘to do this, press 1; to do that, press 2; ...’. We are designing the application that asks, ‘How may I help you?’, and you, as a caller, can say whatever you'd like. ... The system will catch most — hopefully :-) — of the caller's intent and transfer the caller to the right group of Service Representatives. It's lots of fun to work on applications like this.”
Past
Lab Managers
Anna Bruns
Anna Bruns (2022-2023). MA in Experimental Humanities & Social Engagement at NYU 2023.
Ashley Feng
Ashley Feng (2020-2022). BS in Neuroscience at NYU 2022.
Chen Zhao
Zofii & Elska Kaczmarek
Zofii & Elska Kaczmarek (2012-2016). Stuyvessant High School 2013.
Cat Tourangerau
Cat Tourangerau (2011-2012). BA in Psychology at NYU 2011.
Wendy Schnebelen
Wendy Schnebelen (2010-2011). BA in Psychology at NYU 2011.
Elizabeth Grand
Elizabeth Grand (2009-2010). BA in Psychology at NYU 2010.
Katharine Tillman
Katharine Tillman (2004–2009). BA in Psychology at NYU 2009. Now PhD student at UCSD.
Lyuba Azbel
Lyuba Azbel (2003-2004) Midwood High School 2004. BA in Russian and East European Studies at Wesleyan University 2008. Honors thesis, an annotated translation, published as a book, Warrior women.
Elizabeth “Betty” Kolod
Elizabeth “Betty” Kolod (2003-2004). Midwood High School 2004. BA in Chemistry at Wesleyan 2008.
Marialuisa Martelli
Marialuisa Martelli (2002–2003). PhD University of Rome 2001. Now Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Rome La Sapienza.
Past
Undergraduates
Christa Bailey
Christa Bailey (2023-2024). Social perception and self-image.
Abigail Rivera-Crouch
Abigail Rivera-Crouch (2023). Social perception.
Mai Nguyen
Ashley Feng
Ashley Feng (2018-2022). Conservation of efficiency & beauty.
Darshan Thapa
Darshan Thapa (2018-2020). Effect of uncertainty.
Tiffany Martin
Tiffany Martin (2016) CNS rotation. “Counting neurons used to identify a letter.”
Wendy Schnebelen
Wendy Schnebelen (2010-2011) Honor’s thesis in Psychology, “As children learn
to read, eye and ear improve but always integrate well.
Marianne Jacob
Marianne Jacob (2010-2011) Poster at NYU Undergraduate Conference, “The way we see it: How familiarity affects perception”.
Jordan Suchow
Jordan Suchow (summer 2006 SURP, 2007, 2008, 2009) “Learning letters”. To be submitted to PNAS.
Momosuke Araki
Momosuke Araki (2005-ongoing) Honors thesis, "Perception of emotion of body silhouettes is holistic." Thesis awarded 2007 Psychology Press Prize.
S. Guo
S. Guo (2004). Peripheral reading.