VISxVISION Workshop: Vision Science and Data Visualization Research

Sunday, May 19, 2024, 7:15 – 9:15 pm, Banyan/Citrus

Organizers: Ouxun Jiang, Northwestern University; Ghulam Jilani Quadri, University of Oklahoma; Clementine Zimnicki, University of Wisconsin Madison; Racquel Fygenson, Northeastern University

Interdisciplinary work across vision science and data visualization has provided a new lens to advance our understanding of the capabilities and mechanisms of the visual system while simultaneously improving the ways we visualize data. Vision scientists can better understand human perception by studying how people interact with visualized data. Vision science topics, including visual search, ensemble coding, multiple object tracking, color and shape perception, pattern recognition, and saliency, map directly to challenges encountered in visualization research.

VISxVISION is an initiative to encourage communication and collaboration between researchers from the vision science and data visualization research communities. Building on the growing interest in this topic and the discussions inspired by our recent IEEE VIS Workshop in 2023 (featuring keynote speakers Drs. Bart Anderson, Steve Most, and Kim Curby, with attendance of over 30), as well as IEEE VIS Workshops in 2021 (featuring keynote speakers Drs. Keisuke Fukuda, Jiaying Zhao, and Todd Horowitz; with attendance of over 70) and 2019 (featuring keynote speakers Drs. Jeremy Wolfe, Timothy Brady, and Darko Odic; with attendance of over 80), our 2020 and 2019 VSS satellite events (attendance over 70), and our 2018 VSS symposium (attendance over 200), this workshop provides a continuing platform to bring together vision science and visualization researchers to share cutting-edge research at this interdisciplinary intersection. We also encourage researchers to share vision science projects that can be applied to topics in data visualization.

Modeled on last year’s success, this year’s workshop will consist of invited talks followed by a Q&A session and a 1-hour poster session.

A call for abstracts will solicit recent, relevant research at the intersection of vision science and visualization or collaborative/applied projects in either field (deadline: April 1). The top submissions will be selected for presentation as posters at the workshop (notification: April 15).

Please register for VisxVision.

The Vision Science of Digital Readability: Community-Building Workshop

Friday, May 17, 2024, 9:00 am – 12:00 pm, Snowy Egret

Organizers: Dr. Nilsu Atilgan, The Readability Consortium; Dr. Ben D. Sawyer, University of Central Florida; Dr. Steven Clapp, University of Central Florida

Speakers: Dr. Denis Pelli, New York University; Dr. Ben Wolfe, University of Toronto Mississauga; Dr. Shaun Wallace, University of Rhode Island; Dr. Minjung Kim, Meta; Dr. Hilary Palmen, Google; Dr. Yingzi Xiong, Johns Hopkins University

A community of scientific inquiry is emerging around reading in the digital interface. Academic disciplines ranging from vision science to computer science are finding it central to their work to have a mechanistic and applied understanding of reading processes. The research is highly distributed, and this diversity is both valuable and challenging for each researcher to build and maintain an overview of emerging significant research knowledge and trends.

This workshop is a space to facilitate this interdisciplinary research scheme. Participants; vision scientists, industry partners and computer scientists, will discuss how to approach digital reading problems and solutions, exchange experimental knowledge and effective perspectives on application challenges. These discussions can open up new avenues for each research cohort and help understand the problem in a more holistic perspective. This workshop will also promote cross-cultural studies through emphasizing readability research beyond English and the Latin writing system.

The Readability Consortium (TRC) is driving this workshop, we were formed in 2021 to progress reading research methodology and practice. We are motivated to act as a catalyst to facilitate the existence of a broader reading research community that progresses: Understanding reading processes and applying new technologies in ways that will enable people globally to reach their full reading potential, including, but not limited to, people with dyslexia and low vision.

Schedule (3 hours)

Opening remarks (15 minutes)
Lightning talks (90 minutes)
Coffee break (15 minutes)
Small group discussions -for creation of future research directions and guidelines- (20 minutes)
Whole group discussion and closing remarks (40 minutes)

For more information please visit the Digital Readability Workshop website.

2023 Pre-Data-Collection Poster Session

Monday, May 22, 2023, 2:00 – 4:00 pm, Jasmine/Palm

Organizers: Sabrina Hansmann-Roth, University of Iceland; Bjoern Joerges, York University; William Ngiam, University of Chicago; Janna Wennberg, University of California

It is customary for conference posters to contain at least preliminary results. However, feedback and suggestions with regards to the experimental design – a major benefit of poster sessions – would be most helpful before data collection has started. In hopes of achieving this, we will be hosting a pre-data collection poster session.

Receiving feedback at this early stage promotes rigorous and impactful science – researchers can identify confounds, hidden assumptions, or other concerns that would likely be raised by reviewers. This cuts down research waste as suggested changes can be implemented before resources are committed. Researchers may even learn of similar studies and potential issues, helpful resources, or opportunities for collaborations between labs. This mirrors Registered Reports, an Open Science initiative, where peer review of a pre-registration occurs before data is collected.

Interested VSS attendees will be asked to sign up by indicating their research topic and a short (250 word) description of their research idea and preliminary design. Registration for this event will be just-in-time ~~(deadline: May 1)~~. Those selected will be asked to prepare a conference poster which focuses on the theoretical background of the study and their proposed study methods. There will be a maximum of 40 posters, and spots will be granted on a first come, first serve basis.

We are aware that, under an adversarial, competitive view of academia, this event may place presenters in a vulnerable position – participation publicizes research ideas without allowing them to formally lay claim through a publication. We encourage poster viewers to be mindful, using this event to establish collaboration with presenters and improve science. We will be creating an Open Science Framework Meetings page if presenters wish to upload their pre-data posters, providing a verification and timestamp of their research proposals. However, ultimately if you are worried about getting scooped, presenting your idea at this event might not be the right decision for you.

If you want to present a poster on your proposed research design, you can submit your abstract using this Google Form. If you merely want to browse and comment on the posters, no registration is necessary.

Update May 2nd: Submissions are still open, but please send us a note () to make sure that we process your submission promptly.

Update May 16th: Please find the abstract booklet here:

Abstracts_All Download

A Multispectral Projector for Advanced Vision Science

Saturday, May 18, 2024, 12:45 – 2:15 pm, Banyan/Citrus

Organizers: Dr. Jonathan Tong, Staff Scientist at VPixx Technologies; Dr. Lindsey Fraser, Staff Scientist at VPixx Technologies

The human eye contains five distinct classes of photoreceptors: the short, medium, and long-wavelength cones, the rods, and the intrinsically Photosensitive Retinal Ganglion Cells (iPRGCs). Although each type is maximally activated by a unique wavelength of light, their spectral sensitivity bandwidths overlap, so that most light sources will activate multiple photoreceptor types. Therefore, researchers who wish to functionally isolate a given receptor type will use the “silent substitution” technique, in which pairs of light are used to selectively modulate the activity of a target photoreceptor type while maintaining a static level of activity in the other photoreceptor types.

However, conventional displays, with RGB primaries alone, are often insufficient for producing the spectral outputs, or light pairs, required for most “silent substitution” applications. In principle, it is necessary to have as many primaries as receptor types that you wish to target or “silence,” with carefully selected spectral profiles.

In this presentation, we will discuss how we designed a 4-primary “multispectral” projector (PROPixx) that can modulate activity (spatially and temporally) in one class of receptors while “silencing” three other receptor types, such as targeting rods while silencing the three cone types. We will review the technical challenges involved in building projectors with 4+ primaries, and the computational modeling approaches we took in selecting primaries for different silent substitution applications. We will also expand on other vision science applications that can be achieved with multispectral displays.

Finally, our guest speaker, Dr. Pablo Barrionuevo (Justus-Liebig Universität Giessen, CONICET-UNT), will highlight how he and his collaborators have used the multispectral PROPixx in their research.

To help us plan this event, please send an email to signal your interest to

VPixx is a privately held company serving the vision research community by developing innovative hardware and software tools for vision scientists (http://www.vpixx.com). For more general educational content, visit the VPixx Online Classroom and Library (VOCAL): www.vpixx.com/vocal

Visibility: A Gathering of LGBTQ+ Vision Scientists and Friends

Friday, May 17, 2024, 8:30 – 10:00 pm, Garden Courtyard

Organizers: Michael Grubb, Trinity College; Alex White, Barnard College

LGBTQ students are disproportionately likely to drop out of science early. Potential causes include the lack of visible role models and the absence of a strong community. This social event is one small step towards filling that gap and will bring awareness to continuing challenges for queer scientists.

Please join us towards the end of the opening night reception, in the Garden Court (located between the Jacaranda building and the Grand Palm Colonade).

All are welcome. Snacks, drinks, and camaraderie will be provided.

Virtual Reality + Eye Tracking for Research

Sunday, May 19, 2024, 12:45 – 2:15 pm, Blue Heron

Organizers: Matthias Pusch, Co-Founder, WorldViz VR; Sado Rabaudi, Product Manager, Solutions Architect, WorldViz VR; Dan Tinkham, Head Of Sales, Americas, WorldViz VR

WorldViz VR will give an educational seminar and hands-on demonstration of the latest virtual reality and mixed reality consumer devices with built in eye tracking and will explain how this equipment can be used in a research context. This presentation will include a high level overview of virtual reality and mixed reality key concepts as well as explanations for how to create custom immersive experiments using the latest software, including a demonstration of the SightLab VR Pro drag-and-drop VR + eye tracking toolkit. WorldViz VR will also provide examples of notable publications and successful use cases for virtual reality + eye tracking research across various academic disciplines. Participants will walk away with a better understanding of currently available immersive technology and how they can use it in their own research – they may be surprised how easy it is.

phiVis: Philosophy of Vision Science Workshop

Tuesday, May 21, 2024, 12:30 – 2:30 pm, Banyan/Citrus

Organizers: Chaz Firestone, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University & Kevin Lande, Department of Philosophy & Centre for Vision Research, York University

Speakers: Ian Phillips (Johns Hopkins), Tiina Rosenqvist (Dartmouth), Rosa Cao (Stanford); with commentary by Jeremy Wolfe (Harvard), Bevil Conway (NIH), Talia Konkle (Harvard)

The past decade has seen a resurgence in conversation between vision science and philosophy of perception on questions of fundamental interest to both fields, such as: What do we see? What is seeing for? What makes seeing different from remembering, deciding or imagining? The phiVis workshop is a forum for continuing and expanding this interdisciplinary conversation. Short talks by philosophers of perception that engage with the latest research in vision science will be followed by discussion with a slate of vision scientists.

Conversations between philosophers of vision and vision scientists have enriched research programs in both fields. On the one hand, the latest generation of philosophers of vision are deeply immersed in the scientific literatures on natural scene statistics, visual short-term memory, ensemble perception, contour integration, amodal completion, visual salience, multi-sensory integration, visual adaptation, and much else. On the other hand, vision scientists have found a great deal of value in responding to and thinking together with philosophers about the mechanisms and effects of perceptual constancies, attentional selection, object perception, and perceptual uncertainty, to name just a handful of topics. These conversations are not only intrinsically interesting for everyone involved, they have been fruitful sources of research and collaboration. However, opportunities for dialogue are all too rare, often occurring only through chance interactions or one-off workshops. The phiVis satellite is meant to be a platform to extend these discussions.

There will be an informal reception at the Demo Night BBQ, the evening before the workshop, with a couple of tables and wine. All are welcome to stop by!

For more information, visit: https://www.phivis.org/

Computational and Mathematical Models in Vision (MODVIS)

Wednesday, May 15, 2024, 9:00 am – 6:00 pm, Blue Heron
Thursday, May 16, 2024, 9:00 am – 6:00 pm, Blue Heron
Friday, May 17, 2024, 9:00 am – 12:00 pm, Blue Heron

Organizers: Marianne Maertens, Technische Universität Berlin; Jeff Mulligan, Freelance Vision Scientist; Zygmunt Pizlo, UC Irvine; Anne B. Sereno, Purdue University; Qasim Zaidi, SUNY College of Optometry

Contributed presentations covering modeling in all areas of vision science. More information can be found at the workshop website https://www.purdue.edu/conferences/events/modvis/.

Canadian Vision Science Social

Sunday, May 19, 2024, 12:30 – 2:30 pm, Palm/Sabal/Sawgrass

Organizers: Caitlin Mullin, VISTA Program Director, York University; Laurie Wilcox, VISTA Scientific Director, York University; Rob Allison, Director, Center for Vision Research, York University
Speaker: Laurie Wilcox, VISTA Scientific Director, York University

This social event is open to any VSS member who is, knows, or would like to meet a Canadian Vision Scientist! Join us for casual discussions with students and faculty from several Canadian Institutes or to just satisfy your curiosity as to why we in the North are so polite and good natured, Eh? We particularly encourage trainees and scientists who would like to learn about the various opportunities available through York’s Centre for Vision Research (CVR) and Vision: Science to Applications (VISTA) program. So, grab your toques and your double-double and come connect with your favourite Canucks. This event will feature free food and refreshments.