“We imagine a messenger walking through the hippocampus carrying packets of information,” says @drmack.bsky.social.
“The more messengers that go through a particular pathway, the stronger the footprint is going to look.”
🐾 www.psych.utoronto.ca/news/psychol...
Vasco da Gama bridge at sunset in Lisbon, Portugal.
What makes a bridge aesthetically pleasing to members of the public?
Psychologists and civil engineers @utoronto.ca have teamed up to find out in the first empirical study of its kind.
🌉 www.psych.utoronto.ca/news/empiric...
The MacLab makes an appearance on CBC's The National. www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9Xa...
You may not need a new job, relationship, or expensive hobby this year to find more meaning in life.
You just need to pay more attention, according to a series of studies led by @artsci.utoronto.ca Prof. Katy Tam.
💡 www.artsci.utoronto.ca/news/easy-sc...
Front of Sidney Smith Hall with snow on the ground and benches
Need support during Reading Week? The Office of the Faculty Registrar is open!
Find the OFR's hours here: https://www.artsci.utoronto.ca/current/faculty-registrar
Two students walking by University College on a snowy day.
Are you a student or graduate of psychology @utoronto.ca? We want to hear from you!
Complete the UTQAP Student Survey by Feb 20 to help shape our programs. In appreciation of your time, you will be entered into a draw to win a $50 VISA gift card.
✅ uotsurvey.forumresearch.com/SE/1/UTQAPPS...
We’ve been getting kinder.
Even in 2024, four years after the onset of COVID-19, the frequency of benevolent acts such as volunteering, helping strangers, and donating to charity were over 10% above their pre-pandemic levels.👇
Since nobody else is talking about AI these days, check out my conversation w/ @azimshariff.bsky.social sponsored by the International Telecommunications Society & the Munk School. It’ll be fun! (Azim and I disagree about a few things.) Feb. 19, 9:30–10:30 AM EST
www.eventbrite.ca/e/how-ai-cha...
Big news on #SaferInternetDay: I’ve been elected as a Research Fellow with the AIChildSafety.org Childhood & AI Lab.
Grateful to John Zoltner and the Lab for creating space for this kind of work.
🔗 lnkd.in/ggm6bgtv
#AIChildSafety #ChildhoodAndAI #ResponsibleAI #DevSci
Population receptive field size in scene-selective visual cortex is related to the anterior-posterior organization. Spatial frequency preference is NOT related to pRF size!
New results by Charlotte Leferink and @damianoc.bsky.social:
doi.org/10.1162/IMAG...
@uoftpsychology.bsky.social @utoronto.ca
Two students walking by University College on a snowy day.
Are you a student or graduate of psychology @utoronto.ca? We want to hear from you!
Complete the UTQAP Student Survey by Feb 20 to help shape our programs. In appreciation of your time, you will be entered into a draw to win a $50 VISA gift card.
✅ uotsurvey.forumresearch.com/SE/1/UTQAPPS...
What does university feel like in an age of AI & accelerating change?
In our first-ever student issue , 🎒 #UofT students reflect on uncertainty and hope — from setbacks to finding community — and how it’s shaping life after graduation. ➡️ magazine.utoronto.ca
👋 UofT Doctoral Students: You have one week left to register for the Data Science Certificate!
Gain in-demand skills that can enhance career opportunities. No prior knowledge of data science required.
📆 Deadline: February 4
🔗 https://uoft.me/DScert-doctoral
A first-of-its-kind study has examined the driving habits of more than 900 older drivers living across Canada to determine how their cognitive abilities may impact their driving behaviour.
🚗 www.psych.utoronto.ca/news/study-l...
New lab paper with Dave Sobel @candmlab.bsky.social and led by the remarkable @radovanovic.bsky.social and @jaeminhwang.bsky.social. Infants expect equality not only in resource distributions but also resource collections.
New study led by @mishalex.bsky.social at @camhnews.bsky.social @uoftpsychology.bsky.social using a novel paradigm to show neurotype-dependent media evaluation from autistic and non-autistic adults. Freely accessible for now with @autisminadulthood.bsky.social
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
PhD students: Do you have experience with structural or fMRI data analysis? Are you interested in data harmonization, open science, and cognitive aging? 🧠📊 💻 If yes, this post-doc position in my lab is perfect for you!
Please share with your networks!
jobs-ca.silkroad.com/Baycrest/Car...
(a) Mean cross-validated R2 for each model, averaged across participants and shown separately for each visual area (V1–hV4) and across all ROIs combined. Error bars indicate ± 1 SEM. All pairwise differences were significant except between the Contour-Based and Line Drawing–Steerable Pyramid Models in hV4. (b) Mean R2 by population receptive field eccentricity. Eccentricities of voxels are binned up to 4.2 visual angle which was the extent of the image from the central fixation mark. (c) Left: Visual ROI on an inflated surface map in fsaverage space. Right: R2 difference surface map in fsaverage space. R2 from the Photo-Steerable Pyramid Model was subtracted from the Contour Model. Positive values indicate bigger R2 values from Contour compared to Photo-Steerable Pyramid Model.
What determines the perception of orientations in visual cortex, sharp contours or oriented spatial frequencies?
It's the contours, the building blocks for shape. Brilliant paper by Seohee Han out in Scientific Reports:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
@uoftpsychology.bsky.social
Wonderful article about our recent paper in @pnasnexus.org! Thanks, @sachapfeiffer.bsky.social and @mickbonner.bsky.social!
@yikai-tang.bsky.social @uoftpsychology.bsky.social @artsci.utoronto.ca @utoronto.ca
Do online studies advertised as being about singlehood or romantic relationships attract a biased sample? A new MacLab paper first-authored by @elainehoan.bsky.social says no. unromanticprof.substack.com/p/is-a-parti...
“[It's] giving me the dedicated resources to focus in on this really exciting new research area, and take the calculated risks necessary to make new discoveries,” says @artsci.utoronto.ca Prof. Katherine Duncan. www.utoronto.ca/news/decodin...
Happy holidays, #UofT 💙 The university will be closed from Dec. 24, 2025 to Jan. 2, 2026.
To find resources for the U of T community, please visit utoronto.ca/utogether.
We wish you a safe & restful winter break! ❄️
Calling all undergraduate students interested in data science! Apply today for our Summer Undergraduate Research Program for the opportunity to engage in hands-on data science research!
📣 Undergraduate students, are you interested in #DataScience? The DSI Summer Undergraduate Data Science Opportunities Program is a great chance to engage in hands-on research.
Apply now!
https://datasciences.utoronto.ca/suds-student-call-2026/
“People don’t just want to enjoy the superficial qualities of an artwork: the lines and the colours. They want to have a deeper connection with it," says @dirkbwalther.bsky.social. www.thestar.com/entertainmen...
Conceptual Roadmap of the present study. To examine the relationship between the metabolic costs of visual processing and aesthetic pleasure, we used both computational and physiological measures to quantify metabolic costs during visual processing: 1. Model-derived estimates of metabolic costs based on the activation of a deep neural network; 2. Metabolic activity of human brains, specifically in the visual processing areas. We found that both measures were inversely related to aesthetic pleasure.
Energy efficiency drives evolution, and humans may have evolved pleasure-based signals to optimize actions. Does this extend to aesthetic pleasure?
Yes!
Strong evidence in silico and humans, out in PNAS Nexus:
tinyurl.com/3kbu8xw4
With Yikai Tang and Wil Cunningham.
@uoftpsychology.bsky.social
Elizabeth Page-Gould named University of Toronto SSHRC Leader
We are delighted to share that Prof. @page-gould.bsky.social has been elected to a three-year term as @utoronto.ca’s SSHRC Leader.
The SSHRC Leaders network provides a bridge between postsecondary institutions across Canada and the funding agency.
🔗 www.psych.utoronto.ca/news/elizabe...
Honoured to add my name to the ledger book of the @src-rsc.bsky.social last week in Montreal, joining those of my mentors
With thanks to my trainees, colleagues, @baycrest.bsky.social and my family
#rscBRAVOsrc video: lnkd.in/gXvwR2e4
@baycrestfoundation.bsky.social
@uoftpsychology.bsky.social
Played the role of the research nerd in this discussion of whether it's embarrassing to have a boyfriend. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
A group of psychology undergraduates @artsci.utoronto.ca recently published a review of research in the Canadian Journal of Undergraduate Research investigating how each of our senses shape our experience of food.
🍣 www.psych.utoronto.ca/news/a-feast...
Does solitude offer more autonomy than social interaction? A new paper with @elainehoan.bsky.social and @jessiesun.bsky.social says it depends who you're interacting with. Read about it in my most recent substack post (link to paper in comments). unromanticprof.substack.com/p/does-solit...
