Isabella Jackson

Congratulations to Isabella, a first-year PhD student in the Watts lab for winning the APAGS/Psi Chi Junior Scientist Fellowship. This fellowship intends to provide funding for rising first-year or second-year graduate level projects and to provide constructive feedback to select applicants in order to increase their chances of achieving success on future National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship.

Events

Colloquium Speaker: Wilma Bainbridge

University of Chicago

November 11th, 2025 -- 4pm, 126 Wilson Hall

"Memory is predictable"

Dissertation Defense: Conor Smithson

Gauthier Lab

November 5th, 2025 -- 8:30 am, 306 Wilson Hall

"The Structure and Correlates of Domain-general Object Recognition Ability"

Lab Updates

Wallace Lab

The Wallace Lab had 12 undergraduate students join the lab as research assistants in September and October.

Several graduate students presented posters at VKC Science Day (Adam Tiesman, 1st year PhD student in Neuroscience; Will Quakenbush, 4th year PhD Candidate in Neuroscience; Hari Srinivasan, 4th year PhD Candidate in Neuroscience). Adam Tiesman's poster won the Graduate Systems Neuroscience award ($250 Travel Grant).

Hari Srinivasan accepted a position on the Autism in Adulthood Journal's Editorial Board. He also presented a poster at the IFoRe Symposium hosted by Sigma Xi, a Scientific Honor Society. Hari was quoted in a National Geographic article titled The Life Changing Power of Awe. Hari also attended the Autism Europe Triennial Congress in Dublin, Ireland.

Holden Thorp, the Editor in Chief of Science, visited the Wallace Lab and experienced a few of our experimental tasks, including our VR Bubble Popping task.

Publications

Tong Lab

Jang, H., & Tong, F. (2025). Category-specific perceptual learning of robust object recognition modelled using deep neural networks. PLOS Computational Biology, 21(9): e1013529, 1-19. Read Here.

Daumail, L., Blake, R. & Tong, F. (2025). A reevaluation of the visual phantom illusion and its impact on the motion aftereffect. Scientific Reports, 15: 36358, 1-12.

Read Here. (image from the article on right)

Tong, F., & Krupinski, E. A. (2025). Advancing medical image perception and quality assessment through technology and human factors research. Journal of Medical Imaging, 12(5): 051801, 1-3. Read Here.

Park Lab

Baxter T, Park S. (2025) Felt-Presence, Psychosis-Risk, and Self-Disturbance in the General Population. Psychopathology, 25:1-29. PMID 40996925

Blain SD, Snodgress MA, Peterman JS, Nummenmaa L, Glerean E, Park S. (2025) Social Bodies; Preliminary evidence that awareness of embodied emotions is associated with recognition of emotions in the bodily cues of others. Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice. 12(4), 584–593. doi.org/10.1037/cns0000352

Giersch A, Ferri F, Park S, Thompson J, Humpston CS. (2025) Bodily Self-Disturbances and Hallucinations in Schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Bulletin. 51 (S3) 241–252. Read Here.

Lyu F, Chakraborty S, Lee HS, Gagnon H, Park s, Bodenheimer B (2025) The Effects of Crowds on Peripersonal Space and Interpersonal Distance in Immersive Virtual Environments. IEEE ISMAR

Alumni Updates

Michael Rossi Cairo

After graduating from Vanderbilt, Magna Cum Laude in Economics and Psychology, Michael moved back to Italy and explored a few different sectors before finding his place in consulting. He is an MBA candidate at SDA Mocconi and while he doesn't use psychology directly in his day-to-day work, he says the major still gave him a valuable lens through which to understand people and organizations. At the end of the day, companies are made up of individuals, and having a foundation in how people think and what motivates them has been surprisingly useful to him.

Lab Spotlight

The Perception, Plasticity and Learning Lab

Kari Hoffman leads the Perception, Plasticity and Learning lab, investigating how neural circuits organize and adapt to build knowledge. Her research examines how memories manifest in brain activity and whether this activity can be intercepted or enhanced. Using multi-channel recording and stimulation in freely moving primates, she studies neural population dynamics during naturalistic behaviors mirroring real-world learning.

Hoffman and her lab combine high-density wireless ensemble recordings with computational modeling to understand how oscillatory brain activity supports adaptive behaviors like memory-guided exploration. Her work pioneered chronically implanted multi-electrode arrays enabling simultaneous recordings from hundreds of neurons in macaque monkeys, providing insight into neural circuit coordination during learning and memory formation. Read More Here.

Lab Website Here