Lab News
Our paper titled Robust representation of the spatial arrangement of topological features was accepted for publication at Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics! (March 2026)
Congratulations to Naomi Lytle and Mahwish Kittur for receiving National Eye Institute Early Career Scientist Travel Grants to attend VSS 2026! (February 2026)
Congratulations to Rachel Olugbusi whose paper titled, Ensemble size perception as a case study of the bounds of adaptation was accepted at Psychonomic Bulletin & Review! This is the third paper with an undergraduate author we've published in the last several months. This one serves as a really important piece in the broader adaptation puzzle that the lab is still working out. (February 2026)
For the past year, our lab has been working in collaboration with a dozen other labs across the world on a unique project: An adversarial collaboration about cross-modal number adaptation. Our registered report on the project was provisionally accepted at Psychological Science. Now, our 20+ collaborators from across the world to work together to come to a consensus in response to our recent, ongoing debate. We are very grateful to our adversarial collaborators, Roberto Arrighi and Irene Togoli, for their willingness to engage in this unique exercise. Stay tuned for updates on this project in 2026! (December 2025)
We are pleased to announce our paper titled Distortions of space and time in and around objects and events was just accepted in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. This work was a collaboration with momentslab.org. You can find some fun visual media from this paper here: spatialcognitionlab.org/spacetime. (December 2025)
The lab is rebranding to become the Spatial Cognition Lab. There are many reasons for this change, but the gist is that this name is a more apt description of our core interests. We’ll continue to investigate all of the adjacent topics that have always fascinated us (e.g., number, time, memory and memorability, etc.), and even some more distant topics on occasion, but hopefully our core identity will be clearer. (December 2025)
Congratulations to Gabriel Waterhouse whose paper titled The ‘crowd size illusion’ and the relativity of number perception was published in Cognitive Science. Continuing a recent trend in the lab, this work was completed and submitted while Gabe was still first-year undergraduate student! (What’s more: This is only the first of many exciting projects Gabe has worked on. Stay tuned!) (November 2025)
Congratulations to Cynthia Wen whose paper titled Unfolding event structure distorts subjective time was just accepted in Cognition. This work was a collaboration with momentslab.org. We’re especially proud of Cynthia because she completed and submitted this work as a first-year (!) undergraduate student! (October 2025)
Our paperCan we “see” value? Spatiotopic “visual” adaptation to an imperceptible dimension was published in Cognition (August 2025)
The lab has officially moved to Ohio State! More exciting updates about the lab will be coming soon… (August 2025)
Our paper No privileged link between intentionality and causation: Generalizable effects of agency in language was published in Cognition. (July 2025)
Our paper Random behavior is stable across tasks and time was published in Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. (June 2025)
Our paper An illusion of time caused by repeated experience was published in Psychological Science. (April 2025)
Sami was honored to receive the Psychology & Neuroscience Mentorship Award for his mentorship of undergraduate students. (April 2025)

