Monday, May 24, 2021, 8:45 – 10:45 AM EDT
Tuesday, May 25, 2021, 2:30 – 4:30 PM EDT

Organizer: Arash Akbarinia, Vivian Paulun, Guido Maiello, Kate Storrs, University of Giessen

Since 2004, the European Summer School, Visual Neuroscience From Spikes to Awareness, has taught many neuroscientists with a broad background. This event aims to reunite all the former alumni and trainees by presenting a number of exciting projects triggered at the Rauischholzhausen Castle. We also encourage the participation of prospective attendees who would like to learn about this Summer School, the various opportunities it offers, and the synergistic community it fosters. Alumni from all generations are invited to present their multidisciplinary, more-or-less scientific final projects. We hope there will be at least one contribution from every year of the summer school. This could be the final fun project or anything else you come up with, such as your favorite pictures from the summer school or a ‘How It Started … How It’s Going’ of the attendees, be creative! The bottom line is to meet and catch up, so please do join us.

If you’ve got any questions, send an email to .

Tuesday, May 25, 2021, 12:00 – 1:00 PM EDT

Organizers: Dr. Lindsey Fraser, VPixx Technologies; Dr. Sophie Kenny, VPixx Technologies
Speaker: Dr. Lindsey Fraser, VPixx Technologies

Over the past year, VPixx Technologies has developed the LabMaestro Simulator, a software tool that simulates VPixx’s data acquisition hardware. The Simulator can record button presses from a virtual button box, simulate incoming triggers and analog signals to the virtual data acquisition system, and mimic timestamps for a virtual display. The LabMaestro Simulator allows researchers to develop and test experimental protocols without a connection to in-demand hardware or limited-access research sites, such as MRI suites. Little to no modification of code is required to switch between virtual and physical VPixx devices.

The goal of this satellite is to introduce the LabMaestro Simulator and provide an overview of its functionality. We will start with a review of the register-based architecture shared by all of our hardware, and the benefits this architecture offers for signal timing and synchronization. Principles such as writing to hardware registers, as well as locking triggers and data acquisition to visual events, will be discussed. We will show how the simulator replicates this architecture via a virtual server, and highlight the differences between the behaviour of virtual and physical devices, where such differences exist.

The satellite will end with a demonstration of some of the utilities available through our different licensing options. VPixx staff scientists will be available for questions about the Simulator at the end of the satellite, and throughout the remainder of the conference.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Friday, May 21, 2021, 4:00 – 5:00 PM EDT
Sunday, May 23, 2021, 8:00 – 9:00 AM EDT

Organizers: Dr. Sophie Kenny, VPixx Technologies; Dr. Lindsey Fraser, VPixx Technologies
Moderator: Dr. Lindsey Fraser, Staff Scientist at VPixx Technologies
Speaker: Dr. Sophie Kenny, Staff Scientist at VPixx Technologies

Pack&Go is a remote experiment testing and data collection solution under development by VPixx Technologies. Pack&Go runs MATLAB/Psychtoolbox experiments developed by the vision and psychology research communities. The Pack&Go solution provides a high-performance computer architecture for executing Psychtoolbox code remotely. A vetted participant equipped with the correct links and credentials can access the experiment online and stream it to their browser on demand. The participant’s technological requirements are relatively low: the participant will not need to download files to their device or meet specific hardware requirements aside from having a stable internet connection. Pack&Go records data files generated during the execution of the scripts programmed by the researcher, including formats such as .csv and .mat. The data files are stored on a secure server alongside anonymized participant information and information about the network’s quality during the data collection session. When one or more participants have completed the online study, the experiment manager can download the data locally and analyze it, much in the same way as if the researcher had run the experiment on a local computer.
VPixx Technologies has worked since 2001 developing innovative hardware and software solutions to meet the needs of vision scientists and the extended research community. Pack&Go’s development emerged from our long tradition of developing products based on continuous discussions with our customers and in conjunction with early-adopting labs willing to serve as guides for our development. Work on Pack&Go began in 2020 in collaboration with Dr. Caroline Blais and Dr. Daniel Fiset from the University of Quebec in Outaouais (UQO).
With Pack&Go, VPixx Technologies will enable researchers who use Psychtoolbox to retain the ability to design their complex experiments and stimuli and run them online, maintaining similarity with the experiments they usually run in their laboratories.
The satellite session’s objective is to demonstrate the project’s current state in a live demo and obtain early feedback from the community. To help us plan this event, please send an email signalling your interest to . We hope to see you at the satellite session!

Each year VSS solicits its membership to submit creative visual images related to the field of vision science, the Society, or the VSS meeting. Traditionally, the winning images are featured on the program, abstracts book, signage, and t-shirts. Due to the online format this year, the winning image appears as the banner throughout the VSS 2021 website.

The Vision Sciences Society is pleased to recognize Susanne Stoll as the winner of the V-VSS 2021 Graphics Competition. Her image, shown above and below, is entitled Global Vision.
 

Global Vision

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and so is the interpretation of Global Vision. However, as with most things in life, there is no end product without a mission. As such, Global Vision attempts to unify three facets of this year’s VSS meeting.

The first facet relates to what we are all striving for, namely understanding vision and how we perceive the ever-changing world around us visually. The second facet is meant to reflect the increased accessibility of this year’s gathering due to its virtual nature, with us being distributed all over the globe. The third facet relates to the multi-focal character of the VSS and thus its broad scope, bringing together expertise from various subdomains, including visual psychophysics, visual neuroscience, computational vision, visual cognition, and bordering fields.

Global Vision attempts to feature these facets by dynamically projecting a map of the world onto the right eye of an unknown other standing right in front of you. A static circular searchlight takes snapshots of the map, generating a globe as much as the right iris of the unknown other. The different snapshots can be interpreted to echo an ever-changing world, the different regions the VSS schedules events in (broadly) as well as the subdisciplines the VSS unites. The circular VSS logo hosts a pupil and is thought to represent the left iris. The wavy lines (or sinusoids) demarcate the overall shape of the right and left eye, but can also be seen as a decorative element encapsulating the different facets.

By looking you right in the eyes, Global Vision is also meant to ask you quite candidly what your global vision is.

Special thanks go to my colleagues and friends in London and Auckland, the Board of Directors, and the VSS organization team for providing constructive feedback on my design idea. I wish everybody a superb and insightful V-VSS 2021.

About Susanne Stoll

Susanne Stoll completed her undergraduate studies in Psychology at the University of Tübingen, followed by an MSc in Mind and Brain at Humboldt University of Berlin. Currently, she is a final year PhD student under the supervision of Dr. Sam Schwarzkopf and Dr. John Greenwood at University College London. Her research uses functional magnetic resonance imaging and population receptive field (pRF) modeling to investigate how perceptual grouping and spatial attention modulate the visual brain’s representation of visual information. Susanne also has a keen interest in relating pRF properties to behavior as well as counteracting regression fallacies and probing the validity of analysis procedures in visual neuroimaging and beyond.

The Student-Postdoc Advisory Committee (SPC) advises the VSS  board and membership about how events, workshops, meeting structure, and activities can best target the needs of trainee members and attendees. The SPC reaches out to trainees to solicit opinions and ideas. Based upon feedback, the Committee organizes special events.

Each year VSS will solicit nominations for new members of the Student-Postdoc Advisory Committee to replace three members who will be rolling off the Committee. Terms end in May of the year shown.

Doug Addleman (2023)

Dartmouth College

Doug Addleman is a postdoctoral researcher at Dartmouth College, before which he earned his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Minnesota. He studies selective attention, focusing on experience-driven attention, attention in multiple modalities, and the effects of vision loss on spatial attention. On the Student-Postdoc Advisory Committee, Doug is committed to advocating for the diverse interests and identities of vision scientists in training.
 

Stacey Aston (2022) Chair

Durham University

Stacey Aston is a postdoctoral researcher in Durham University’s Psychology Department. In her research, she studies visual and multi-sensory information integration for human perception and decision making. Stacey joined SPC to have a positive impact on the VSS experience for student and postdoc members. She is sure that the newly formed SPC committee will be a valuable asset to the VSS team as they work to enrich the VSS program with many more development and networking opportunities.
 

Cristina Ceja (2022) Record Keeper

Northwestern University

Cristina Ceja is a graduate student at Northwestern University pursuing a PhD in Psychology. She is interested in exploring the limits of our visual system in perceiving, processing, and updating visual representations. Currently, she studies how the visual system binds features to objects, and the role of visual attention in this binding process. As a member of the Student-Postdoc Advisory Committee (SPC), she looks forward to building on her existing outreach efforts and committee work dedicated to engaging and advocating for trainees.

Sabrina Hansmann-Roth (2023)

University of Lille

Sabrina Hansmann-Roth is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Lille. She obtained her Ph.D. in 2016 from the Université Paris Descartes under the supervision of Pascal Mamassian working on material perception. She continued as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Iceland to study the implicit encoding of probabilistic visual information. Her research focuses on ensemble perception, serial dependence, decision making and spatial vision besides her continuous interest in material perception. Sabrina is looking forward to be a part of the SPC and will reach out to the early-career researchers to understand their concerns and needs and how the Vision community can provide an inclusive environment for all attendees.

Björn Jörges (2022) Board Liaison

York University

Björn finished his PhD at University of Barcelona and is currently doing a PostDoc at York University, Toronto, in a project funded by the Canadian Space Agency. His research is focused on the role of vestibular cues for visual perception and how we perceive moving objects while we ourselves are moving through the environment. He is furthermore convinced that open and diverse science is better science.
 
 

Takuma Morimoto (2023)

University of Oxford

Takuma Morimoto is currently a Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Experimental Psychology at University of Oxford, where he received a Ph.D in 2020. His research aims to understand mechanisms underpinning stable visual percepts of material properties, such as color and gloss, across vastly different lighting environments. Takuma joined the Student-Postdoc Advisory Committee to help make VSS an even more diverse and inclusive community. He is especially keen to support students and early career researchers with non-traditional pathways to research using his experiences as a first-generation student.

Incoming SPC Members (2022-2024)

Rebecca Hornsey (2024)

York University

After completing her PhD in Psychology at the University of Essex, Rebecca is now a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at York University, in the Centre for Vision Research. Her research interests surround the investigation of visual perception in virtual reality and she is currently researching distance perception within consumer headsets. As part of the committee, and as an early career researcher herself, Rebecca is keen to liaise with other early career researchers and help improve the experience of those in the VSS community. Rebecca is also looking forward to sharing her passion of vision research with a wider network of individuals, and organising exciting, new events.

Maruti Mishra (2024)

University of Richmond

Maruti is currently a Trawick Postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Psychology, University of Richmond, VA, where she investigates neural correlates of face processing mechanisms, and teaches a semester course on ‘Animal Minds’ to undergraduate students. She obtained her PhD in Cognitive Science (2018) from the Centre of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences, University of Allahabad, India, with a focus on how visual attention influences face perception. She travelled to the USA to pursue her postdoctoral research in developmental prosopagnosia at Harvard Medical School, Boston, and then investigated the role of micro saccades in visual perception at the University of Rochester, NY. In pursuing these interests, she has used a range of methods, including psychophysics, electroencephalography, eye tracking, and diffusion tensor imaging. As a member of the VSS-SPC she is interested in a) enhancing the representation of international women scientists in vision science, b) advocate for mental health issues in academia, and c) find strategies to support scientists during unprecedented situations, especially what we have seen during COVID and now the outcomes of the war.

Stephanie Shields (2024)

University of Texas at Austin

Stephanie Shields is a graduate student pursuing a PhD in Neuroscience at The University of Texas at Austin. She is interested in studying how sensory information is processed in neural circuits to support perception, particularly stereoscopic perception. Her dissertation research focuses on the impact of environment-to-retinae geometry on the encoding and perception of 3D orientation. Stephanie is committed to helping support the needs and success of her fellow early career researchers, and she looks forward to doing so as a member of VSS’s SPC.

Applications Are Now Open for the VSS Student-Postdoctoral Advisory Committee (SPC)

The Vision Sciences Society welcomes applications for three vacancies on the VSS Student-Postdoctoral Advisory Committee. Successful applicants will join the three continuing members of the current VSS Student-Postdoctoral Advisory Committee (SPC).

The mandate of the SPC is to share ideas and proposals about how VSS events, workshops, meeting structure and activities can best meet the needs of trainee members and early career researchers.  The SPC participates in the design and operation of VSS events and workshops that are relevant to the needs and interests of early career researchers.  Serving on the SPC, as well as facilitating or leading any resulting activities, are also useful professional experiences for the engaged trainees.

In the past year, SPC members contributed to the design and operation of conference events, including for the upcoming V-VSS 2021. They provided valuable advice and perspectives to the VSS Board about aspects of the conference and the organization that are relevant to trainees and early career researchers.  Members of the SPC meet both independently and with VSS Board members several times per year.  See Student Postdoc Events for descriptions of the events led by SPC at V-VSS 2020.

Membership is for a period of one year, beginning on the first day of the Annual Meeting, with the opportunity for appointment to a second year.

VSS wants to send its appreciation to the current Committee for their outstanding service in 2020/2021: Stacey Aston, Kathryn Bonnen,  Matthew Boring, Cristina Ceja, Björn Jörges, and J. Brendan Ritchie (see Student Postdoc Advisory Committee)

VSS welcomes and actively seeks applications from students and postdoctoral members whose research spans the range of areas represented in the organization, and who reflect the global diversity and aspirations of the VSS membership.

Application Procedure

Those interested in becoming members of the VSS Student-Postdoctoral Advisory Committee should send the following information in a single PDF file:

• A one-page personal statement. This statement should summarize your reasons for wanting to serve on the SPC, any prior experience, or any aspects of your background that you feel is relevant to serving on the SPC;
• List of previous VSS conferences attended;
• Statement of intention to attend the VSS conference in 2021 and 2022 as a student/postdoc VSS member, as well as a statement that the applicant expects to retain status as either a student or postdoc for the 12 months following the 2021 conference;
• Names and contact information of two individuals who could provide letters of support for the nomination; and
• Current CV, including current affiliation and contact information.

Application materials should be emailed to  by Friday, March 12th.

Those who applied to the SPC last year are encouraged to resubmit this year if you are still a student or postdoctoral VSS member.

Applications Accepted: February 16, 2021
Applications Close: March 12, 2021
Committee Announced: April 15, 2021

Session Builder

This 9-minute video demonstrates how to use the Session Builder in MeetingTrakr to create sessions and assign abstracts to a session.

Note: This video was made in 2021. Some things have changed in MeetingTrakr since this was recorded.

• The Timezone filter has been removed from the Session Builder page (minute 3:00) as this was a feature used for building V-VSS sessions.
• Abstracts can now be bulk added, removed, and transferred by selecting checkboxes to select multiple abstracts (minute 3:30).
• The Add button has been replaced with a plus sign (+) icon (minute 6:27).
• To reorder abstracts in a session, use the Reorder Presentations link (minute 6:40).
• When building a Talk Session, the Preferences filter will not let you view Poster Only abstracts to add to the Talk Session.

2025 Abstract Review Committee

The Abstract Review Committee is composed of accomplished visual scientists representing a broad range of specialty areas and methodological approaches. Members are appointed by the Board to a one-year term; members may be reappointed.