Welcome to the Schloss Visual Perception and Cognition Lab at the University of Wisconsin – Madison! We are part of the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery – Living Environments Lab (LEL) theme and the Department of Psychology.

We investigate how observers make predictions about objects and entities based on their cognitive and emotional responses to perceptual information. We are currently focusing on how people’s associations with colors influence cognitive processing in three broad areas: (1) aesthetic response, (2) judgment and decision making, and (3) interpretation of information visualizations. In doing so, we take take an empirical approach to design, with the goals of understanding how to communicate effectively through visualizations and what determines affective response to perceptual features. Although our main focus is on color, we are also interested in perceptual organization and spatial layout. We also investigate more traditional topics in visual perception, including how perceptual organization influences illusions of size, shape, and motion. See our Research page for further details about ongoing projects in the lab.