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Reposted by Dirk Bernhardt-Walther

Rob Sica @robsica.bsky.social · 1d

"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 do we see style?

In a recent series of experiments, Boger and Firestone ask: How do we perceive style?’. Their findings suggest that style perception relies on basic p…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Reposted by Dirk Bernhardt-Walther

University of Toronto Psychology @uoftpsychology.bsky.social · 7d

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...

Using generative AI to uncover how we attend to complex scene features

www.psych.utoronto.ca

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Dirk Bernhardt-Walther @dirkbwalther.bsky.social · 8d

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!

Cognitive Science Research Community (CoRC) | University College U of T

www.uc.utoronto.ca

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Dirk Bernhardt-Walther @dirkbwalther.bsky.social · 27d

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/

TASC 2026

Toronto-area meeting of researchers working on empirical aesthetics and creativity April 14th, 2026 Paul Cadario Conference CentreCroft Chapter House, University College 15 King's College Circle, T...

sites.google.com

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Reposted by Dirk Bernhardt-Walther

Psychonomic Society @psychonomicsociety.bsky.social · 29d

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

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Reposted by Dirk Bernhardt-Walther

Martin Skov @mskov01.bsky.social · Jul 15

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...

Can arts-based interventions improve health? A conceptual and methodological critique

Can art improve health and wellbeing? The claim that there is strong evidence that engaging with art ameliorates symptoms of mental and physical disor…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Claire Howlin 🎶🧠 @dancingresearch.bsky.social · Jul 3

Here's a link to freely access my recent comment on debates in arts and health research.

Yes free.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

There is more to arts and health than neural mechanisms: A Critique of Evidence Dismissal in Arts and Health: Comment on “Can arts-based interventions improve health? A conceptual and methodological c...

www.sciencedirect.com

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Dirk Bernhardt-Walther @dirkbwalther.bsky.social · Jul 1

Happy Canada Day, tout le monde! 🇨🇦

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Dirk Bernhardt-Walther @dirkbwalther.bsky.social · Jun 27

@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.

Can arts-based interventions improve health? A conceptual and methodological critique

Can art improve health and wellbeing? The claim that there is strong evidence that engaging with art ameliorates symptoms of mental and physical disor…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Reposted by Dirk Bernhardt-Walther

Phillip Isola @phillipisola.bsky.social · Jun 15

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!

Foundations of Computer Vision

The print version was published by

visionbook.mit.edu

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Reposted by Dirk Bernhardt-Walther

Adrian Nestor @adriannestor.bsky.social · May 23

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...

Researchers harness brain activity to look at how we perceive faces from other racial groups differently

Researchers at U of T Scarborough have used brain activity and AI to reveal why we have a tough time recognizing facial details of people from other races.

www.eurekalert.org

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Reposted by Dirk Bernhardt-Walther

Lu-Chun Yeh @luchunyeh.bsky.social · May 17

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...

The neural time course of size constancy in natural scenes

Accurate real-world size perception relies on size constancy, a mechanism that integrates an object's retinal size with distance information. The neur…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Reposted by Dirk Bernhardt-Walther

Anjan Chatterjee @anjanchatterjee.bsky.social · May 16

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...

A Room with a View (of Art)

Enhancing the built environment with visual art is a major program of the arts in healthcare movement. Does it work?

www.psychologytoday.com

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Dirk Bernhardt-Walther @dirkbwalther.bsky.social · May 13

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

Target–distractor (T-D) Configurations and example search displays. A Target–distractor configurations. The black cell indicates targets, while the grey cells indicate the distractors in each condition. The areas in light grey indicate possible jitter zones for individual distractors. The exact position of the distractors can vary in different directions while maintaining the Euclidean distances from the target and configuration rule. B Example displays of search arrays. All three displays are the examples of target-present trials.

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Reposted by Dirk Bernhardt-Walther

Ravi Menon, Ph.D. @northernthrux.bsky.social · May 5

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...

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Reposted by Dirk Bernhardt-Walther

Ben Balas @bjbalas.bsky.social · May 3

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.

Spring Gala 2025: Color Flings

Fling into Spring with Color

givebutter.com

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Reposted by Dirk Bernhardt-Walther

Martin Skov @mskov01.bsky.social · Nov 28

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...

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Dirk Bernhardt-Walther @dirkbwalther.bsky.social · May 1

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

What do we find beautiful, and how? New conference investigates

psych.utoronto.ca

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Reposted by Dirk Bernhardt-Walther

Imaging Neuroscience @imagingneurosci.bsky.social · Apr 17

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!

Screenshot of the original tweet announcing our move, with 5K likes and 2M views.

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Dirk Bernhardt-Walther @dirkbwalther.bsky.social · Apr 11

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

The Mirror Model of Art sees creativity and aesthetics as mirrors of one another.

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John Anderson 🇨🇦 @janderz8.bsky.social · Apr 4

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!

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Martin Skov @mskov01.bsky.social · Mar 26

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

Simon Fisher @profsimonfisher.bsky.social · Mar 25

“What an odd thing“ wrote Oliver Sacks “to see an entire species playing with listening to meaningless tonal patterns, preoccupied for much of their time by what they call ‘music’...“. Our new paper, led by ace student @giacomobignardi.bsky.social, unpacks this puzzle from a genetic perspective. 🧪

Twin modelling reveals partly distinct genetic pathways to music enjoyment - Nature Communications

Here, Bignardi et al. report on a study of over 9,000 Swedish twins that indicates the ability to enjoy music is influenced by multiple partly distinct genetic factors.

www.nature.com

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Reposted by Dirk Bernhardt-Walther

Kalanit Grill-Spector @kalanitgs.bsky.social · Mar 21

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

Emily Kubota @emilykubota.bsky.social · Mar 17

The latest paper from my PhD is now out in Nature Human Behavior! rdcu.be/edRwQ

White matter connections of human ventral temporal cortex are organized by cytoarchitecture, eccentricity and category-selectivity from birth

Nature Human Behaviour - Kubota et al. find that white matter connections of ventral temporal cortex are innately organized by cytoarchitecture, category and eccentricity from birth, and also...

rdcu.be

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Mel Goodale @action-brain.bsky.social · Mar 19

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-...

VSS 2025 Davida Teller Award – Jody Culham2025 Davida Teller Award – Jody Culham – Vision Sciences Society

www.visionsciences.org

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