Giwon and Simon are moving on to new opportunities

Posted on Aug 15, 2025

Giwon and Simon have been postdoctoral fellows working with Tom, Gordon, and Jeff on projects aimed at understanding and modeling monkey and human behavior, and monkey neurophysiology and electrophysiology in visual cognition.

Simon has worked on developing ensemble models of perceptual decision making that jointly explain choice behavior, speed-accuracy tradeoffs, neural data, and confidence, developing a model of bottom-up salience that predicts behavior and neurophysiology to extend our recent models of top-down salience in visual search, and understanding relations between attention, memory, and serial order. Simon is moving to the newly established College of Connected Computing at Vanderbilt as an Assistant Professor of the Practice. He will bring his computational and quantitative expertise to teach undergraduates across the university how to apply computation and data science to a wide range of disciplines. He will also maintain a Research Assistant Professor position in the department and plans to continue active collaborations with colleagues in Wilson Hall.

Giwon has worked on developing a joint computational understanding of the relationships between behavior, neurophysiology, and electrophysiology, resulting in a model that predicts the time course of a key event-related potential (ERP) component associated with attentional allocation and target selection, the monkey analogue of the N2pc. He has also worked on developing a computational understanding of sequential decision making and ensemble perception. Giwon will be moving to Pennsylvania State University in September for a postdoctoral fellowship with Roger Beaty, where he will study how large language models (LLMs) can be used to automate the assessment of creativity in natural-language-based tasks. He hopes to gain more insights into how to model high-level thought processes computationally and how LLMs can contribute to psychological understanding.

We wish Simon and Giwon the best in their new endeavors!

Welcome and congratulations to Shucheng Li

Posted on Aug 1, 2025

Shucheng Li joins the lab as a new graduate student this fall. Welcome Shucheng! And congratulations for being the recipient of a prestigious Vanderbilt University Graduate Fellowship.

Shucheng received her Bachelor’s degree from New York University Shanghai with a major in Neuroscience and a minor in Mathematics. Under the mentorship of Prof. Wei Ji Ma, Prof. Zhong-Lin Lu, and Prof. Xing Tian, she studied various topics including planning, attention, and visual search, using computational models, behavioral experiments, and neural recordings. As an incoming Ph.D. student at Vanderbilt, Shucheng will explore how our brain decide where to move our eyes and where to allocate our attention in the collaboration we have with Jeff Schall and Gordon Logan.

Congratulations to Serena and Tobasum

Posted on May 15, 2025

Congratulations to Serena Xia and Tobasum Mandal on winning prestigious summer undergraduate research fellowships. Serena received a Vanderbilt University Summer Research Fellowship (VUSRP) to work on projects simulating individual differences in visual cognition and on testing AI models on classic visual categorization tasks. Tobasum received a START fellowship to work on a project simulating visual cognition at different levels of abstraction. Both will be continuing their research in the lab this academic year.

Tom named Centennial Chair

Posted on Sep 6, 2024

Tom has been named Centennial Chair. For faculty, named chairs are the highest forms of regard within the University.

https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2025/05/05/vanderbilt-awards-endowed-chairs-to-33-faculty-members/

Congratulations Dr. Jason Chow

Posted on Aug 8, 2024

Congratulations to Jason on successfully defending his PhD for a thesis titled “Modeling Individual Differences in High-level Visual Cognition Using DNNs“. His PhD committee was me, Isabel Gauthier, Sean Polyn, and Maithilee Kunda. Jason is now on to an industry position with Meta in Seattle as a Research Engineer. His starting project will be working on developing open-source software tools for adaptive psychophysical experimentation in real and virtual environments. Congrats Jason!

Yinuo Peng joins the CatLab

Posted on Jul 31, 2024

Yinuo Peng joins the CatLab and the Psychological Sciences PhD program as a graduate student this fall. Welcome Yinuo!

Yinuo received her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Master’s degree in Psychological Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where, under the supervision of Dr. Frances Wang and Dr. Simona Buetti, she studied time and space perception, visual search, and object learning in humans and deep neural networks. As a graduate student at Vanderbilt, Yinuo is interested in exploring the mechanisms of object perception, recognition, and representation using computational and deep learning techniques.

Jin wins Harold Stirling Vanderbilt Fellowship

Posted on Apr 29, 2024

Congratulations to Jin Jeong on winning a Harold Stirling Vanderbilt Fellowship to supplement his support in years four and five as a graduate student the Psychological Sciences PhD program. Jin previously was awarded a University Graduate Fellowship to supplement his support in his first three years. Congratulations Jin!

Tom Elected Fellow of the Society of Experimental Psychologists (SEP)

Posted on Dec 19, 2023

Tom has been elected as a Fellow of the the Society of Experimental Psychologists (SEP). SEP is the oldest scientific society in the field, started by Titchener over a century ago, and election is a signal honor. Other departmental faculty who are Fellows of SEP are Randolph Blake, Isabel Gauthier, Gordon Logan, and Jon Kaas.

The first meeting of the Society of Experimental Psychologists … was held at Cornell University in 1904. The meetings then, and for many years thereafter, were presided over by Edward Bradford Titchener. Researchers from universities including Cornell, Yale, Clark, Michigan, and Princeton attended these early meetings, with Chicago and Iowa soon joining. Research papers were read and discussed by established researchers and tyros alike. As the number of practicing experimental psychologists grew nationally, along grew discussions concerning the limits that should be placed on membership in the group: Should it be kept small to ensure a manageable series of conferences; or should it be open to all interested, practicing experimental psychologists? The decision was made to keep it small-to follow the so-called Academy model-and eventually Fellows of the society were instrumental in the founding of an alternative organization, called The Psychonomic Society, to serve the needs of broader representation and communication.

The meetings were kept small and brief, just one and half days of sessions, and continued their emphases on communication of ongoing research and the open exchange of ideas among active researchers. In the original bylaws of 1929, the purpose of the Society was stated simply as follows: “To advance Psychology by arranging informal conferences on experimental methodology.” Methodology had been an important focus of the Experimentalists, where visits to laboratories and the demonstration of equipment during meetings were actively encouraged. As the Society’s evolved interest in methodology waned, it was replaced by interest in theory and data.

Jenn Richler wins Distinguished Alumnus Award

Posted on Dec 12, 2023

Congratulations to Jenn Richler on winning the Psychological Sciences at Vanderbilt Distinguished Alumnus Award! Jenn received her PhD working with Tom Palmeri and Isabel Gauthier where her research focused on face and object perception and recognition, learning, attention, and memory. After a postdoctoral fellowship at Vanderbilt where she also worked as an Associate Editor for Journal of Experimental: Psychology: General and a writer for the American Psychological Association, Jenn chose to move into a scientific publishing career. Jenn joined Nature Climate Change and Nature Energy in 2016 as a Senior Editor handling manuscripts that spanned the behavioral and social sciences. Jenn returned to her psychology roots as the launch Chief Editor of Nature Reviews Psychology in 2021.

To recognize and honor the distinguished alumni of Psychological Sciences at Vanderbilt, we have established the Distinguished Alumnus Lecture. The recipient is a former undergraduate, graduate student, or postdoctoral fellow from the Department of Psychology in the College of Arts and Science or the Department of Psychology and Human Development in Peabody College at Vanderbilt who has made major contributions to the psychological sciences. The recipient will receive a $500 honorarium and will be invited to give the Distinguish Alumnus Lecture.

Greg Cox wins William K. Estes Early Career Award

Posted on Sep 17, 2023

Former postdoctoral fellow Greg Cox wins the William K. Estes Early Career Award from the Society for Mathematical Psychology. Greg is now an Assistant Professor at the University at Albany. Congratulations Greg!

The Society for Mathematical Psychology presents an annual award for exceptional published research in the field of mathematical psychology by an early career investigator. Previously known as the “New Investigator Award,” it was renamed after William K. Estes in 2009, recognizing his contributions to our Society and the field of mathematical psychology generally.

Jason Chow wins 2023 Pat Burns Memorial Graduate Student Research Award

Posted on May 11, 2023

Congratulations to Jason for winning the 2023 Pat Burns Memorial Graduate Student Research Award.

Pat Burns touched generations of doctoral students during her nearly four decades of service to Vanderbilt University. In memory of her tireless efforts to help guide our students through all phases of their graduate education, the Department of Psychology establishes a Graduate Student Research Award to recognize outstanding achievement in research by our most outstanding graduate students. The recipient receives a plaque and a $500 award.

Jason was recognized for his outstanding research. His nomination noted that “Jason is exceptionally creative and talented”. “He has breadth and depth, a great collaborator, writer and teacher, and a very productive graduate student”. “He will certainly make this program proud for years and years to come.”

Congratulations Jason!

Story describing some of our expertise work on birding appears in Audubon Magazine

Posted on Apr 1, 2023

An article titled “Yes, Birding Does Change Your Brain” appeared in the Spring 2023 issue of Audubon Magazine:

https://www.audubon.org/magazine/spring-2023/yes-birding-does-change-your-brain