Hello! We are a group of cognitive scientists in the School of Psychology at the University of Waterloo.
Our lab investigates various aspects of perception and cognition, with a particular focus on the perception of other minds and the visual roots of social cognition. For example, we are investigating how our perceptual system is well-tuned to extract others' mental states, and how the attention of other people can influence our own attention, as well as other processes such as person impressions and moral judgments. We are also exploring how we can perceive not just others' perceptual and cognitive states, but also their metacognitive states such as awareness, confidence, or uncertainty — and how such impressions facilitate communication and collaboration.
Sept 2026: We are excited to welcome new undergraduate researchers to the lab -- welcome Brayden, Joshua, and Annabel!
Aug 2026: Congratulations to lab undergraduates Layla Hussain and Matthew Yeung, who will be starting their graduate studies at Western and U of Toronto!
June 2026: Congratulations to David, Layla, Trent, Matthew, Caroline, and Carter, who presented our research at the Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour and Cognitive Science conference!
May 2026: Congratulations to Hannah for completing her honours thesis on the perception of dynamic attentional states!
Apr 2026: Congratulations to Simran, who gave a talk on her work at the Toronto Aesthetics Sciences and Creativity Conference!
Mar 2026: Congratulations to Caroline and Carter for being awarded Canada Graduate Research Scholarships to pursue their MA studies!
Sept 2025: We are excited to welcome several new lab members this fall: Dr. Trent Cash who joins as a postdoctoral fellow; Caroline Simpson and Carter Smith, who are starting their MA; and Jessica Hoang, who is starting her honours thesis. Welcome!
Apr 2025: Congratulations to Caroline, who was recognized with the Certificate of Academic Excellence from the Canadian Psychology Association (CPA) and an Honours Thesis Award from our department for her undergraduate thesis!
Apr 2025: Congratulations to Shakthi and Simran, who presented their work at the 2025 Psychology Discovery Conference!
Feb 2025: Congratulations to Brian and Caroline, who presented their work at the 2025 Lake Ontario Visionary Establishment!
Feb 2025: Congratulations to Daniela, who will be starting her graduate studies at UBC this summer! Daniela completed her honours thesis in the lab on the spatial distribution of attention in gaze cueing.
Jan 2025: Our research on the perception of social groups is now published in Visual Cognition -- check it out here!
Jan 2025: We are excited to welcome new undergraduate researchers to the lab -- welcome Matthew, Duncan, and Nour!
Interested in joining the lab? Check out this page for more information.