perception

Try this. Find a photo on your phone that you love. Now squint, or zoom out until it's the size of a stamp. It's still the same photo. You can still tell what's in it. But something about it has gone a little flat — the part that made you take it in the first place has quietly walked out of the room. Most of us would describe what just happened with a shrug: "it's just smaller." But the truth is …

A hidden force may be quietly shaping how you feel—and you’d never even know it. Infrasound, an ultra-low-frequency vibration below the range of human hearing, is everywhere from traffic to old buildings. In a small experiment, people exposed to it became more irritable, less engaged, and even showed higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol—despite having no idea it was present. The findings …

Do vertical stripes actually make a person look thinner? A new study published in i-Perception provides evidence that horizontal pencil stripes can produce a more slimming effect. Researchers found that specific line spacing and direction alter our visual judgment of human figures.

Inaudible infrasound from old pipes and ventilation systems may affect how people feel, research indicates For believers in the paranormal , unsettling sensations brought on by old buildings can be a sinister hint of loitering spirits. But new research points to a more mundane explanation: inaudible sounds from aged pipes and boilers. Scientists investigated the impact of infrasound on a group of…

You've been drawn to the same aesthetic your whole life. New research shows it's not a coincidence. Your dominant drive predicts what you find beautiful.

Visual perception of highly memorable images is mediated by a distributed network of ventral visual regions that enable a late memorability response Lahner, Benjamin; Mohsenzadeh, Yalda; Mullin, Caitlin; Oliva, Aude Behavioral and neuroscience studies in humans and primates have shown that memorability is an intrinsic property of an image that predicts its strength of encoding into and retrieval …

Quantum-enhanced humans might see further domains of reality than we could ever imagine.

Quantum-enhanced humans might see further domains of reality than we could ever imagine.

Perceptual distortion is a key yet under-recognized feature of amblyopia that extends beyond visual acuity loss and impacts binocular vision. While various forms of distortion have been reported, discrepancies across studies may reflect the narrow focus on single stimuli or distortion types. We argue for a more comprehensive approach to studying distortion—through mapping and multi-feature assess…

Martin Wiener, associate professor in the Department of Psychology, has received a multi-year award from the National Science Foundation. The project aims to explore how the brain processes time when looking at images, with important implications for understanding memory, learning, and visual perception.

IntroductionDrivers supervising Level 2 automation must maintain situation awareness while the system controls steering and speed. Miscalibrated trust can contribute to overreliance and lapses in monitoring, whereas insufficient trust leads to disuse. Prolonged supervision is associated with increased mind-wandering, which can slow reactions to critical events. This study tested whether brief edu…

Scientific Reports, Published online: 20 April 2026; doi:10.1038/s41598-026-48067-4 Semantic processing and individual suggestibility modulate motor preparation and perceived distance for looming sounds entering the peripersonal space

A new paper challenges the traditional idea that the brain is simply a computer. Instead, it argues that human cognition and personality are built on embodied perception, relying on our ability to maintain a "grip" on reality.

Nature Communications, Published online: 14 April 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-71600-y This study shows that expectations about when a stimulus will occur systematically increase perceived intensity of pain and non-painful sensations, independent of actual delay or prediction errors, highlighting a core role of temporal expectations in perception.

Faces: we see them in clouds, electrical outlets and even a $28,000 toasted sandwich said to look like the Virgin Mary. Known as face pareidolia, seeing faces in inanimate objects or patterns of light and shadow is a common phenomenon. So primed are our brains to detect facial features that we even see faces in meaningless visual noise, especially when the images are symmetrical, new research sug…

Beauty isn’t a mystery. It’s a calculation — one your brain runs in milliseconds, without asking for your input. You glance at a logo, or scroll past an image, and something registers immediately. You either feel drawn in or you don’t. That instant pull is the psychology of visual aesthetics at work. And it’s far more precise, more predictable, and more powerful than most people realize. This mat…

Spring 2011 | Cover Story Fertile Ground Humanists are turning to cognitive and neuroscientists—and vice versa—to gain new insights into perception and experience.

New research reveals how concert hall colors trick our brains into hearing "warmer" musical tones.