The Website Banner Competition is a contest to select an image that will serve as the brand, or theme, of the annual meeting by providing imagery that will be used throughout the VSS meeting. Although the winning image will be used for many purposes, to enter the competition you need to submit proposed images for the primary website banner and the secondary page website banner. Other items will be created using variations of the winning image.
Your proposed primary website banner design will replace the current banner on the VSS website home page. Your secondary page website banner will replace the banner shown at the top of this page. At a minimum, your proposed banner image should include the name of the society and the dates of the meeting.
To enter the Website Banner Competition, please submit two full-color raster images in .jpg or .png format.
The primary website banner image must be 3070 pixels by 534 pixels. The secondary page website banner must be 3070 pixels by 178 pixels.
If your image is chosen as the winning design, in addition to the banner image, you will be asked to provide variations of your image for use on the printed program cover, signs, and other purposes.
The winner of the Website Banner Competition will be awarded $500 USD and will be recognized in the meeting program, on the meeting website, and at the Awards session at the VSS meeting.
You must have been active in VSS within the last two years to submit an image.
Email your images to as an attachment. One email per submission, please. Specify you are entering the Website Banner Competition in your subject line. Include a brief description of your image that the board will consider when reviewing the submitted images.
Schedule Deadline to submit an image for Website Banner Competition: September 14, 2023 Website Banner Competition image chosen: by October 3, 2023
The T-Shirt Design Competition is a contest to select an image for the VSS t-shirt. The image may also be used on other items that require line art.
Two images are needed for the t-shirt: one for the back and one for the breast. The maximum print area for the back image is approximately 11 inches square; the breast image print area is 3″ square. You can submit one image for both purposes or separate images. The images will be printed on black t-shirts and white t-shirts, so the image must be usable on both black an white backgrounds.
The images should include at least the name and year of the meeting (eg: VSS 2024), but may also include other information, such as the meeting dates and location.
T-shirts are printed using a silkscreen process, so the image must be line art that uses a maximum of four spot colors (solid colors, not composite colors). Large areas of solid colors are discouraged as these are more difficult to print and result in an image with a plastic feel that is not comfortable to wear.
To enter the T-Shirt Design Competition, please submit a PDF of your proposed design showing your images as they would appear on both a white background and a black background.
If your image is chosen as the winning design, you must provide your artwork in Adobe Illustrator (.ai) format or Scalable Vector Graphics (.svg) format.
The winner of the T-Shirt Design Competition will be awarded $500 USD and will be recognized in the meeting program, on the meeting website, and at the Awards session at the VSS meeting.
You must have been active in VSS within the last two years to submit an image.
Email your images to as an attachment. One email per submission, please. Please specify you are entering the T-shirt Design competition in your subject line. Include a brief description of your image that the board will consider when reviewing the submitted images.
Schedule Deadline to submit an image for T-shirt Design Competition: January 10, 2024 T-shirt image chosen: by January 31, 2024
The winning image of the Website Banner Competition will also be used for the program covers, onsite signage, PowerPoint slides, bulk emails, printed materials, and other places where needed.
The winning image of the T-Shirt Design Competition will be used on the VSS 2024 T-shirt and may also be used for other purposes, such as tote bags, pens, hats, and mugs/water bottles.
You may submit more than one image for consideration and you are allowed to enter images in both competitions. You may submit the same image to both competitions as long as the file format requirements can be met.
Images may be related to scientific content, the Vision Sciences Society, or St. Pete Beach and the surrounding area. The image may include the VSS logo or be an alteration of the VSS logo.
The winner of each competition grants VSS unlimited rights to copy, publish, edit, print, and use the images for any purpose, including publishing images online and on other electronic and hard-copy media.
Winning images are chosen by a vote of the VSS Board of Directors.
Submissions for Website Banner Competition must be received no later than September 14, 2023. Submissions for the T-Shirt Design Competition must be received no later than January 10, 2024.
To submit an image for consideration, you must have participated in VSS during the last two years.
Website Banner Competition
The Website Banner Competition is a contest to select an image that will serve as the brand, or theme, of the annual meeting by providing imagery that will be used throughout the VSS meeting. Although the winning image will be used for many purposes, to enter the competition you need to submit proposed images for the primary website banner and the secondary page website banner. Other items will be created using variations of the winning image.
Your proposed primary website banner design will replace the current banner on the VSS website home page. Your secondary page website banner will replace the banner shown at the top of this page. At a minimum, your proposed banner image should include the name of the society and the dates of the meeting.
To enter the Website Banner Competition, please submit two full-color raster images in .jpg or .png format.
The primary website banner image must be 3070 pixels by 534 pixels. The secondary page website banner must be 3070 pixels by 178 pixels.
If your image is chosen as the winning design, in addition to the banner image, you will be asked to provide variations of your image for use on the printed program cover, signs, and other purposes.
The winner of the Website Banner Competition will be awarded $500 USD and will be recognized in the meeting program, on the meeting website, and at the Awards session at the VSS meeting.
Deadline to submit an image for the Website Banner Competition is September 14, 2023. You must have been active in VSS within the last two years to submit an image.
The T-Shirt Design Competition is a contest to select an image for the VSS t-shirt. The image may also be used on other items that require line art.
Two images are needed for the t-shirt: one for the back and one for the breast. The maximum print area for the back image is approximately 11 inches square; the breast image print area is 3″ square. You can submit one image for both purposes or separate images. The images will be printed on black t-shirts and white t-shirts, so the image must be usable on both black an white backgrounds.
The images should include at least the name and year of the meeting (eg: VSS 2024), but may also include other information, such as the meeting dates and location.
T-shirts are printed using a silkscreen process, so the image must be line art that uses a maximum of four spot colors (solid colors, not composite colors). Large areas of solid colors are discouraged as these are more difficult to print and result in an image with a plastic feel that is not comfortable to wear.
To enter the T-Shirt Design Competition, please submit a PDF of your proposed design showing your images as they would appear on a white background and a black background.
If your image is chosen as the winning design, you will be asked to provide your artwork in a scalable vector graphic file, such as Adobe Illustrator or compatible.
The winner of the T-Shirt Design Competition will be awarded $500 USD and will be recognized in the meeting program, on the meeting website, and at the Awards session at the VSS meeting.
Deadline to submit an image for theT-shirt Design Competition is January 10, 2024. You must have been active in VSS within the last two years to submit an image.
Email your images to as an attachment. One email per submission, please. Specify which competition you are entering in your subject line. Include a brief description of your image that the board will consider when reviewing the submitted images.
Schedule Deadline to submit an image for Website Banner Competition: September 14, 2023 Website Banner Competition image chosen: by October 3, 2023
Deadline to submit an image for T-shirt Design Competition: January 10, 2024 T-shirt image chosen: by January 31, 2024
The Itinerary Planner lets you bookmark Sessions, Talks, and Posters of interest so you can create a personal Itinerary of sessions you want to attend at the VSS Meeting. You must be logged in to your MyVSS account and be registered to attend the VSS Meeting to use the Itinerary Planner.
How to Bookmark Items
If you are logged in and a VSS registrant, you will see bookmark icons preceding session times and talk and poster titles. Clicking the bookmark icon will add, or remove, the item from your Itinerary. The icon indicates an unbookmarked item and the icon indicates an item you have already bookmarked. All bookmarked items will appear on your My Itinerary page.
Bookmarking Hierarchy
If you bookmark a Talk or Poster session, all of the talks or posters in that session are automatically bookmarked and added to your Itinerary. Similarly, if you unbookmark a Talk or Poster session, all of the talks or posters are removed from your Itinerary. Use with Caution so you don’t accidentally remove all of the talks/posters in a session that you have meticulously added individually.
Talks and Posters may also be added or removed individually with no effect on the parent session or other talks/posters.
Removing Items from your My Itinerary Page
When you click a green bookmark icon on your My Itinerary page, the icon will change to white indicating that you have removed the item from your Itinerary. The item itself will disappear the next time your refresh your My Itinerary page.
If the item you remove is a Talk or Poster session with talks/posters listed beneath, the icons for those talks/posters will not change color, but they will be removed the next time your refresh your My Itinerary page.
Viewing Your Itinerary Offline
You can use the button at the top of your My Itinerary page to print a copy of your itinerary or save it as a PDF of offline viewing.
We are pleased to announce that we will host an online Mind Matching session (powered by Neuromatch) ahead of the VSS conference. It’s a great opportunity to make new connections online through VSS before the conference begins. Those who want to continue the conversations can later arrange to meet up in person at the conference. The event is open to all members. Everyone is invited and encouraged to join – graduate and undergraduate students, postdoctoral fellows, professors, researchers, and industry professionals.
WHEN: May 2nd, 11 am EDT (that’s the time in St Pete’s Beach, FL; (Time zone converter!!)
WHERE: Zoom link sent to participants.
Sign-ups close on or before April 25th (registration will be capped at 300 attendees)
What is Mind Matching? Mind Matching pairs you with attendees with similar interests, explicitly ruling out people you already collaborate with.
How does Mind Matching work? You provide recent abstracts (something you’ve written or abstracts you didn’t write that you find interesting). You also provide your ORCID id (if you don’t have one, you can make one here) and a list of people you don’t want to be matched with (collaborators, advisors, friends, labmates). Neuromatch uses that information to do groupwise matching based on the abstracts you submitted while also using your ORCID id to avoid people you already know and collaborate with.
What happens during the event? The event will happen on zoom. During the event, there will be 2 rounds of matching. For each round, you will have been matched into a small group that is assigned to a particular breakout room. Each small group will also be provided a set of conversation prompts in the form of a word-cloud that was generated based on the group’s collective abstracts.
Code of Conduct: As with all VSS events, participants must follow the Society’s Anti-Harassment Policy
Each abstract is assigned a unique 4 or 5-digit number based on when and where it is being presented. Talk presentations are a 4-digit number and Poster presentations are a 5-digit number (the last two digits of a poster are the board number).
The format of the abstract numbering is DT.RN, where D is the Day, T is the Time, R is the Room and N is the presentation Number.
First Digit – Day
Second Digit – Time
Third Digit – Room
Fourth-Sixth Digits – Number
2 Saturday
1 Early AM talk session
1 Talk Room 1
1, 2, 3… For talks
3 Sunday
2 Late AM talk session
2 Talk Room 2
01, 02… For posters
4 Monday
3 AM poster session
3 Banyan Breezeway
5 Tuesday
4 Early PM talk session
4 Pavilion
6 Wednesday
5 Late PM talk session
6 PM poster session
Examples 21.16 Saturday, early AM talk session in Talk Room 1, 6th talk 36.313 Sunday, PM poster session in Banyan Breezeway, poster board 13 53.496 Tuesday, AM poster session in the Pavilion, poster board 96
Each year, VSS solicits its membership to submit creative visual images related to the field of vision science, the Society, or the VSS meeting. There are two competitions,Website Banner Competition and the T-Shirt Design Competition. Winning graphic images are featured on the program, abstracts book, signage, and t-shirts.
The Vision Sciences Society is pleased to recognize Karissa Payne and Evi Hendrikx, as the winners of the 2023 Graphics Competition.
Website Banner Competition
Winner: Karissa Payne, Kansas State University
This design takes inspiration from the technologies and statistical methods we use every day to make our science happen. The VSS logo is depicted as the pupil within an eye shape constructed with angled lines, making a camera aperture shape for the iris. The background design takes inspiration from the statistical models we create to explore connections in our data. Dots and lines indicative of parameters and weightings are remixed, creating an abstract pattern evocative of the complex nature of the elements we study.
T-Shirt Design Competition
Winner: Evi Hendrikx, Utrecht University
T-shirt Back and Chest Images
This year’s t-shirt design uses the letters of VSS to create the contours of illustrations. The front image is an eye, to make the explicit link to the topic of the conference: vision science. The back image combines the letters of VSS with the numbers of 2023 to mimic VSS’ beautiful setting, with a wink to the eye on the front. This image also playfully demonstrates the interaction between bottom-up and top-down processing in visual perception: as soon as you spot the dolphin, you will continue to see it!
We encourage you to join the VSS Board of Directors for the Annual Business Meeting. During this meeting, the VSS leadership will provide an overview of the Society and the outlook and priorities. This year’s meeting will include a discussion of options for the conference locale from 2026 onwards.
The Business Meeting is an opportunity for VSS members to ask questions of the VSS Board of Directors and bring up issues of concern to the general membership.
You may send questions before the start of the Business Meeting to .
VSS is one of the many member societies of FABBS, the Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences. VSS has been invited to contribute articles to an issue of the FABBS journal, Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences (PIBBS). The issue will consist of 23 invited articles, selected from submitted abstracts, that summarize an area of vision research, along with its implications for public policy. Instructions for submitting abstracts for consideration, and other relevant details, are contained in this message.
FABBS is a coalition of scientific societies, including VSS, that share an interest in advancing the sciences of mind, brain, and behavior. FABBS communicates the importance and contributions of research in these areas to policy makers, research funding agencies, and the public. FABBS has advocated on behalf of vision science in relation to levels of funding and the interpretation of policies regarding clinical studies.
PIBBS publishes brief, reader-friendly summaries of contemporary research findings that are relevant to efforts to promote new policies and/or new funding directions. Articles must contain brief statements describing or suggesting policy implications of the work. Articles are citable.
Where can I find examples of PIBBS articles?
Check the PIBBS website. Each article contains a summary of the research and ends with a brief, general implication for policy.
What does “policy” refer to?
Policies may include advocacy for research or funding directions, industry-academic partnerships to accomplish shared goals, formal establishment of new international collaborations, or new practices or guidelines relevant to education, health, or the workplace.
What types of research in vision might have policy implications?
Many research directions in vision science have practical implications for policies. Some examples:
Application of perceptual research involving VR or other emerging visual technologies to benefit education, the workplace or health;
Applications of research on perceptual learning, visual memory or perceptual aspects of reading to education policies, practices or funding;
Use of research on perception to develop technologies or practices relevant to young, aging, or special populations;
Application of research on face perception to identify biases in judgments that may impact social policies;
Development of effective visual presentations of publicly-available data.
What is the value to vision science or to me in submitting an article to PIBBS?
FABBS circulates PIBBS to policy makers and funding agencies. A PIBBS article is also a citable publication that may be useful to you in disseminating the applications of your work to a wide audience.
Who can submit?
This opportunity is open to any 2022 or 2023 VSS member from any country, including student and postdoctoral members. Even though FABBS is a US-based organization, it is interested in policies that enhance international collaborations and cooperation.
What is the process?
Any VSS member (2022 or 2023) can submit an abstract (no more than 200 words) for consideration. Your abstract should summarize the previously-published research that will be reviewed in your article and include a description of the policy implications or applications. (Abstracts presenting new unpublished findings will not be considered.) Include title, authors, authors’ affiliations, authors’ contact information, and a brief bibliography. Indicate which author(s) are VSS members (one or more must be a 2022 or 2023 VSS member). Send your abstract as a PDF file attachment to by January 17, 2023. From the submitted abstracts, 23 will be invited to prepare and submit a manuscript.
Are there costs?
There is no cost to authors.
What is the timeline?
Abstracts are due January 17, 2023. Invitations to prepare an article will be sent to those selected by the end of January. Articles will be due May 1, 2023. The submitted articles will then be reviewed with an eye to acceptance. FABBS manages the process in collaboration with the VSS Board.
icon indicates an unbookmarked item and the 
icon indicates an item you have already bookmarked. All bookmarked items will appear on your 
button at the top of your My Itinerary page to print a copy of your itinerary or save it as a PDF of offline viewing.
