UW Vision and Cognition

Our research lies at the intersection of cognitive psychology, vision science, and social psychology: we use a variety of methods to explore how we perceive other agents and their mental states.

'Attending to Attention'

When we look at other people, we perceive a variety of properties -- from stable traits (such as trustworthiness or extraversion) to more transient states (such as surprise or anger). But there may be an even more foundational set of features that we readily perceive from others' faces: cognitive states, such as how attentive they seem. Our work has shown that the visual system automatically and unconsciously prioritizes others’ attention, such that what ultimately matters is not just perceiving and attending to the relevant physical features, but rather 'perceiveing perception', and 'attending to attention'.

Sample publications:

Colombatto, C., Chen, Y. -C., & Scholl, B. J. (2020). Gaze deflection reveals how gaze cueing is tuned to extract the mind behind the eyes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117, 19825-19829. [pdf] [demo] [supplement]

Colombatto, C., & Scholl, B. J. (2022). Unconscious pupillometry: An effect of ‘attentional contagion’ in the absence of visual awareness. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 151, 302-308. [pdf] [data] [pre-registrations]

Perceiving Minds

Beyond the perception of other people, we have shown that percepts of cognitive states can operate even in nonbiological agents. For example, we have shown that many of the effects of eye contact also arise with simple geometric shapes, when they are seen as directed at the observer. Social perception is thus sensitive not just to people, but more generally to minds, as long as mental states such as attention and intentions are signalled in other ways.

Sample publications:

Colombatto, C., van Buren, B., & Scholl, B. J. (2021). Hidden intentions: Visual awareness prioritizes perceived attention even without eyes or faces. Cognition, 217, Article 104901, 1-7. [pdf]

Colombatto, C., van Buren, B., & Scholl, B. J. (2020). Gazing without eyes: A 'stare-in-the-crowd' effect induced by simple geometric shapes. Perception, 49, 782-792. [pdf]

Metacognition Meets Social Perception

To effectively communicate and collaborate with others, we must monitor not only other people’s cognitive states (e.g., what someone thinks or believes), but also their metacognitive states (e.g., how confident they are in their beliefs). In recent work, we have started exploring the perception of these second-order states such as awareness, confidence, or uncertainty — and how such impressions facilitate communication and collaboration with both humans and non-biological agents.

Sample publications:

Colombatto, C., & Fleming, S. M. (under review). Illusions of confidence in artificial systems.
[pdf] [data & code]

Colombatto, C., & Fleming, S. M. (2024). Folk psychological attributions of consciousness to large language models. Neuroscience of Consciousness, 2024, niae013.
[pdf] [data & code]

Colombatto, C., & Fleming, S. M. (under review). Metacognition as a key dimension in social perception.

Other Active Research Interests

Beyond our work on mind perception, we are also integrating vision science and social cognition in other ways -- some more focused on perception, others more focused on social themes. For example, we explore the visual roots of social perception across a variety of cognitive processes, from perceptual grouping and temporal order judgments, to moral judgment and aesthetic experience. Check out our publications or get in touch to learn more!