News & Announcements
Karen Schloss receives 2026-27 Romnes Award
Eighteen faculty have been honored with the H.I. Romnes Fellowships to recognize faculty with exceptional research contributions within their first six years from promotion to a tenured position. The award is named in recognition of the late WARF trustees president H.I. Romnes and comes with $60,000 that may be spent over five years.
Aiyana Manglona earns Sophomore Research Fellowship
Supported by the Provost’s Office and the Hilldale Fund, this fellowship provides undergraduate students with $4,000 to pursue an independent research project under the mentorship of UW–Madison faculty or staff. Her project, One Size Does Not Fit All: Challenging the Use of Overarching Guidelines for Data Visualizations will be mentored by Karen Schloss.
Halle Braun and Zoe Howard presented their undergraduate honors theses!
Halle Braun (left two photos) Zoe Howard (right two photos) did an outstanding job presenting their honors theses at Psychology STaRS (Student Thesis and Research Showcase). Congratulations Halle and Zoe! Halle Braun's thesis title: Affective [...]
Congratulations Dr. Kushin Mukherjee on defending his dissertation!
Dr. Kushin Mukherjee defended his dissertation on Cognitive Abstractions for Visual Communication, and now he is off to a postdoc at Stanford University! Congratulations Kushin, you did outstanding work at UW-Madison and we can't wait [...]
Zoe Howard Awarded a 2025 Glushko Outstanding Undergraduate Cognitive Scientist Prize
Congratulations to Zoe Howard for receiving a 2025 Glushko Outstanding Undergraduate Cognitive Scientist Prize from the Department of Psychology at UW-Madison! This prize is awarded annually to a senior Psychology major who has demonstrated a [...]
Nancy Davis received a 2025 Outstanding Undergraduate Research Scholar (OURS) Award
Congratulations to Nancy Davis (left) for receiving an Outstanding Undergraduate Research Scholar (OURS) Award from the UW-Madison Department of Psychology! This award recognizes outstanding undergraduate Psychology majors for their contribution to research in our department. [...]
Karen Schloss featured on WPR’s Larry Meiller Show
Colors convey meaning, influence behavior and make us experience emotions. To explain why this is, Larry Meiller of WPR’s The Larry Meiller Show talks with Karen Schloss, associate professor of cognition in UW-Madison’s Department of Psychology and the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery.
Zoe Howard
Psychology
New Publication: Color semantics in human cognition
New paper “Color semantics in human cognition,” was published in Current Directions in Psychological Science. AUthor: Karen B. Schloss People have associations between colors and concepts that influence the way they interpret color meaning [...]
Dr. Melissa Schoenlein defended her dissertation!
Dr. Melissa Schoenlein defended her dissertation on Effects of color category structure on learning and generalization of color-concept associations for novel concepts.
Students presented their research at the 2024 Undergraduate Research Symposium
The annual Undergraduate Symposium showcases undergraduate creativity, achievement, research, service-learning, and community-based research from all areas of study at UW–Madison.
Melissa Schoenlein awarded 23-24 UW-Madison Capstone Teaching Award
This award recognizes dissertators at the end of their graduate program with an outstanding teaching record over the course of their UW–Madison tenure.
Melina Mueller Awarded a 2024 Psychology Department Undergraduate Travel Award
She will present her research "Effects of novel color categories on color-concept association generalization" at the 2024 meeting of the Vision Sciences Society.
Zoe Howard Awarded a 2024 Hilldale Undergraduate/Faculty Research Fellowship
Your Content Goes Here Congratulations to Zoe Howard for receiving a Hilldale Undergraduate/Faculty Research Fellowship! This fellowship provides research training and support for undergraduates to undertake their own research project in [...]
Halle Braun and Alice Overland received a 2024 Outstanding Undergraduate Research Scholar (OURS) Award
Your Content Goes Here Congratulations to Halle Braun (left) and Alice Overland (right) for receiving an Outstanding Undergraduate Research Scholar (OURS) Award.This award recognizes outstanding undergraduate Psychology majors for their contribution to research [...]
Graduate admissions for Fall 2024
Professor Karen Schloss will consider new graduate students for admission for Fall 2024. Prospective PhD students are encouraged to apply to the UW-Madison Psychology PhD program. Please click here for information about our program and [...]
New Publication: More of what? Dissociating effects of conceptual and numeric mappings on interpreting colormap data visualizations
Our paper, "More of what? Dissociating effects of conceptual and numeric mappings on interpreting colormap data visualizations," was published in Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications. AUthors: LEXI SOTO, MELISSA A. SCHOENLEIN, and Karen B. Schloss [...]
Prof. Karen Schloss received the 2023 Psychology Departmental Teaching Award
Your Content Goes Here PI Karen Schloss received the 2023 Department Teaching Award for important contributions in teaching from the UW-Madison Department of Psychology. Courses: Information Visualization (Psych 711/601) and Psychology [...]
Zoe Howard and Melina Mueller Receive Outstanding Undergraduate Research Scholar (OURS) Award
Your Content Goes Here Congratulations to Zoe Howard and Melina Mueller for receiving an Outstanding Undergraduate Research Scholar (OURS) Award. This award recognizes outstanding undergraduate Psychology majors for their contribution to [...]
Zoe Howard and Melina Mueller received an Outstanding Undergraduate Research Scholar (OURS) Award
Congratulations to Zoe Howard and Melina Mueller for receiving an Outstanding Undergraduate Research Scholar (OURS) Award. This award recognizes outstanding undergraduate Psychology majors for their contribution to research in our department. We thank Zoe and [...]
Melina Mueller Awarded a Hilldale Undergraduate/Faculty Research Fellowship
Your Content Goes Here Congratulations to Melina Mueller for receiving a Hilldale Undergraduate/Faculty Research Fellowship, which provides research training and support for undergraduates to undertake their own research project in collaboration [...]
Melina Mueller Awarded Department of Psychology Serendipity Award
Your Content Goes Here Congratulations to Melina Mueller for receiving the UW-Madison Department of Psychology Serendipity Award! The Serendipity Award, funded by Dr. Aris Alexander, recognizes an undergraduate student who has [...]
Clementine Zimnicki awarded 2022 Elsevier/Vision Research Travel Award
Your Content Goes Here Clementine Zimnicki received a 2023 Elsevier/Vision Research Travel Award to present her work at the Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society. Congratulations Clementine! Presentation title: “Hue [...]
Red and blue states: dichotomized maps mislead and reduce perceived voting influence
Rémy A. Furrur, Karen B. Schloss, Gary Lupyan, Paula M. Neidenthal, and Adrienne Wood
New Publication: Red and blue states: dichotomized maps mislead and reduce perceived voting influence
Our paper, "Red and blue states: dichotomized maps mislead and reduce perceived voting influence," was published in Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications. AUthors: Rémy A. Furrur, Karen B. Schloss, Gary Lupyan, Paula M. Neidenthal, and [...]
Unifying Effects of Direct and Relational Associations for Visual Communication
Schoenlein, M. A., Campos, J., Lande, K. J., Lessard, L., & Schloss, K. B. (2023)
New Publication: Unifying Effects of Direct and Relational Associations for Visual Communication
Our paper, "Unifying Effects of Direct and Relational Associations for Visual Communication," was published in IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics. AUthors: Melissa A. Schoenlein, Jonny Campos, Kevin J. Lande, Laurent Lessard, and Karen [...]
Recruiting graduate students for Fall 2023
The Schloss Visual Reasoning Lab is recruiting qualified graduate students to start in Fall 2023 in the Department of Psychology and Wisconsin Institute for Discovery at the University of Wisconsin-Madison! If you are interested in joining [...]
PI Karen Schloss promoted to Associate Professor with tenure
PI Karen Schloss has been promoted to Associate professor with tenure! She is extremely grateful to her students, collaborators, mentors, colleagues, friends, family, and the staff in Psychology and WID for their support [...]
PI Karen Schloss was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure
PI Karen Schloss has been promoted to Associate professor with tenure! She is extremely grateful to her students, collaborators, mentors, colleagues, friends, family, and the staff in Psychology and WID for their support in the [...]
New Publication: Color-concept association formation for novel concepts
Our new paper, "Color-concept association formation for novel concepts," was published in Visual Cognition. AUthors: Melissa A. Schoenlein and Karen B. Schloss Color-concept associations influence fundamental processes in cognition and perception, including object recognition, [...]
New Publication: A holey perspective on Venn diagrams
Our new paper, "A holey perspective on Venn diagrams," was published in Cognitive Science. Authors: Anna N. Bartel, Kevin J. Lande, Joris Roos, and Karen B. Schloss When interpreting the meanings of visual features in [...]
Dr. Anna Bartel graduates with Psychology PhD
Your Content Goes Here Dr. Anna Bartel graduated with her PhD from the UW-Madison Department of Psychology! We were honored to have Anna as a member of the [...]
Dr. Anna Bartel graduated with her PhD in Psychology
Dr. Anna Bartel graduated with her PhD from the UW-Madison Department of Psychology! We were honored to have Anna as a member of the lab, and we wish her all the best in her next [...]
Kelsey Campbell awarded Outstanding Undergraduate Research Scholar Award
Your Content Goes Here Kelsey Campbell was awarded the Outstanding Undergraduate Research Scholar Award from the Department of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This award recognizes outstanding undergraduate Psychology majors [...]
Melissa Schoenlein awarded 2022 Elsevier/Vision Research Travel Award
Your Content Goes Here Melissa Schoenlein received a 2022 Elsevier/Vision Research Travel Award to present her work at the Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society. Talk title: [...]
Clementine Zimnicki awarded Kenzi Valentyn Vision Research Grant
Your Content Goes Here Clementine Zimnicki was awarded a Kenzi Valentyn Vision Research Grant from the McPherson Eye Research Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her project is [...]
IEEE VIS 2021 Honorable Mention for Best Paper
Your Content Goes Here Our paper “Context matters: A theory of semantic discriminability for perceptual encoding systems” received Honorable Mention for best paper at IEEE VIS 20211! This paper presents semantic discriminability [...]
Virtual Brain Demos Coming Soon!
VSS 2022 demo night lessons, including the Desktop versions and the touch system, are coming soon! Stay tuned!
Kushin Mukherjee awarded Kenzi Valentyn Vision Research Grant
Your Content Goes Here Kushin Mukherjee was awarded a Kenzi Valentyn Vision Research Grant from the McPherson Eye Research Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His project is on understanding how [...]
New publications
We are excited to announce two new papers! Mukherjee et al. presents a new theory of semantic discriminability for visual communication, and Schloss et al., is our first paper on the UW Virtual Brain Project!
PI Karen Schloss receives 2020 Steve Yantis Early Career Award
Your Content Goes Here The Psychonomic Society awarded PI Karen Schloss with the 2020 Steve Yantis Early Career award. As stated on their site: The Psychonomic Society confers scientific awards each [...]
PI Karen Schloss received the 2020 Steve Yantis Early Career Award
The Psychonomic Society awarded PI Karen Schloss with the 2020 Steve Yantis Early Career award. As stated on their site: The Psychonomic Society confers scientific awards each year upon young scientists who have made excellent [...]
Melissa Schoenlein received a OPAM Professional Development Award
Graduate student Melissa Schoenlein received a 2020 OPAM Professional Development Award
Color-concept associations
Quantify and explain color-concept associations
Christopher Thorstenson to RIT
He has been appointed to a tenure-track position in Color Science at Rochester Institute of Technology starting in Fall 2021.
NSF CAREER award
PI Karen Schloss received an NSF CAREER award to advance the understanding of visual reasoning for visual communication.
Congrats to Autumn Wickman!
Outstanding Undergraduate Research Scholar Award from the UW-Madison Department of Psychology.
Welcome to our new Postdoc, Christopher Thorstenson
His research focuses on the role of color in social communication.
Congrats to Brianne Sherman
Brianne Sherman received a Welton Sophomore Honors Summer Apprenticeship to support her summer research studying the effects of object recognition on color perception.
Multiple lab awards in Spring 2019
Congrats to Melissa Schoenlein, Shannon Sibrel, and Karen Schloss for receiving awards to present their research at the 2019 annual meeting of the Vision Sciences Society.
Information Visualization
Explain how people infer meaning from visual features
UW Virtual Brain Project™
Develop VR experiences to make science engaging
Colorgorical: An interactive color palette generating tool
How can we generate color palettes for data visualization?
Data Stories Podcast: Color with Karen Schloss
Data stories is a podcast on data visualization with Enrico Bertini and Moritz Stefaner.
Data stories is a podcast on data visualization with Enrico Bertini and Moritz Stefaner.
Congrats to Katie Foley!
Katie Foley received a UW - Madison Department of Psychology Spring Undergraduate Travel Award to present her research at the 2018 meeting of the Vision Sciences Society:
In the media: Communicating with color
Our recent study on communicating with color by Karen Schloss, Laurent Lessard, Charlotte Walmsley, and Katie Foley was featured in the news.
New Publication: Color inference in visual communication: the meaning of colors in recycling
Our new article on how people interpret messages in color-coding systems was published in Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications (CRPI). REFERENCE: Schloss, K. B., Lessard, L., Walmsley, C. S., & Foley, K. (2018). Color inference in [...]
New Publication: Seasonal Changes in Color Preferences Are Linked to Variations in Environmental Colors: A Longitudinal Study of Fall
Our new article on how and why color preferences change of the course of Fall was published in the i-Perception Special Issue: Seeing Colors. REFERENCE: Schloss, K. B., & Heck, I. A. (2017). Seasonal changes in color preferences are linked [...]
Wisconsin Science Festival 2017: Curiosity Unleashed!
Your Content Goes Here Our lab is excited for the Wisconsin Science Festival, is a four-day statewide celebration of science for people of all ages! Nov. 3, 2017 - 6:30pm to 7:00pm Gallery Talk [...]
Graduate admissions for Fall 2018
Our lab is interested in accepting graduate students for Fall 2018. If you are interested in applying to be a graduate student in the Schloss Visual Reasoning Lab at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, please apply [...]
Congrats to Chris Racey!
Chris Racey's presentation at the at the 9th Annual McPherson Eye Research Institute (MERI) Vision Science Poster Session received honorable mention for the Vision Science Poster Award. His poster was entitled "Color naming fluency does not explain color [...]
Media mention: Why Blue Is the World’s Favorite Color
Journalist Abigail Cain discussed our research on color preferences and the Ecological Valence Theory in her article Why Blue is the World's Favorite Color, published on artsy.net.
Color Preference
Understand the nature and origin of color preferences
New Publication: Modeling color preference using color space metrics
Our new article on using color space metrics to describe and predict patterns of color preference is now published online in Vision Research. REFERENCE: Schloss, K. B., Lessard, L., Racey, C., & Hurlbert, A. C. (online 2017). [...]
New Publication: An ecological framework for temporal and individual differences in color preferences
Our new article presenting a unified framework for understanding temporal and individual differences in color preferences is now published online in Vision Research. REFERENCE: Schloss, K. B. & Palmer, S. E. (online 2017). An ecological framework [...]
Congrats to Katie Foley!
The Psychology Department at the University of Wisconsin - Madison honored Katie Foley with the 2017 Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award for her work in our lab. Congratulations Katie, we are so excited for you!
Media mention: As The Seasons Change, So Do Our Color Preferences
NPR's 13.7: Cosmos & Culture featured our article on Seasonal Variations in Color Preferences in a blog post by Tania Lombrozo: As The Seasons Change, So Do Our Color Preferences.
Welcome Chris Racey!
The Schloss Visual Perception and Cognition Lab welcomes our new Postdoc, Chris Racey! Prior to arriving at UW-Madison, Chris was a Post-doctoral Research Fellow working with Prof. Anna Franklin in the Sussex Colour Group (University of [...]
New publication: Seasonal Variations in Color Preferences
Our new article reporting on how color preferences change with the seasons was just published in Cognitive Science's Early View online. REFERENCE: Schloss, K. B., Nelson, R., Parker, L., Heck, I. A., & Palmer, S. E. (online 2016). Seasonal variations in color [...]
New publication: Colorgorical: Creating discriminable and preferable color palettes for information visualization
Your Content Goes Here Colorgorical is a new, interactive tool that generates color palettes for data visualization. Designed and validated using empirical data, Colorgorical creates palettes that allow users to balance aesthetics [...]
Schloss Lab accepting graduate students for fall 2017
If you are interested in applying to be a graduate student in the Schloss Visual Perception and Cognition Lab at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, please apply through the Department of Psychology (http://psych.wisc.edu/graduate-admission-and-requirements.htm)
VPCL joins Wisconsin Institute for Discovery
Your Content Goes Here The Living Environments Laboratory in the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery is pleased to announce the arrival of Dr. Karen Schloss and the Visual Perception [...]
