The Interdisciplinary Vision Lab at the University of New Hampshire, led by Assistant Professor Ömer Dağlar Tanrikulu, studies visual perception from a computational perspective. How do we perceive our environment? What computations allow the visual system to process and interpret sensory input? We use behavioral and psychophysical methods to explore these questions.

Our lab brings together researchers from Psychology, Philosophy, and Computer Science, reflecting our interdisciplinary approach. In addition to empirical work in perceptual psychology, we engage in philosophical research on contemporary cognitive science, critically examining its foundational assumptions and its explanatory power in psychology.

News & Updates

March 2025

We are seeking applicants for a fully-funded PhD student position in our Interdisciplinary Visual Perception Lab

The student will join a vibrant research community with an extensive international network of collaborators. The primary focus of the research will be on computational approaches to perceptual grouping and organization. Additionally, our lab engages in various studies within the philosophy of cognitive science.

The (full-time) PhD student will join the Brain, Behavior, and Cognition track in the Psychology PhD program at UNH. Our graduate psychology program has been recognized by the American Psychological Association for Innovation in Graduate Education in Psychology. To learn more about the Psychology PhD program at UNH, please visit: https://cola.unh.edu/psychology/program/phd/psychology

Required Experience and Education:

1. Previous experience in a research lab or prior experience writing philosophy of mind papers.

2. Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in psychology, cognitive science, computer science, philosophy, neuroscience, or a related field.

3. Interest in cognitive science, visual perception, or philosophy of mind research

Preferred Qualifications:

1. Experience in at least one of the following: PsychoPy, Python, Matlab, or R.

To get more information about the position, please do not hesitate to contact me at ot1031@unh.edu . To apply, please send a cover letter, 2-3 references, CV, and academic transcripts to ot1031@unh.edu. For best consideration, please apply by April 15th, 2025.

August 2024

We are excited to welcome Aksita Reddy Mavurapu, who has a background in Computer Science, and Eyüp Engin Küçük, who has a background in Philosophy, to our lab! Their unique perspectives will bring fresh ideas and strengthen the collaborative, interdisciplinary nature of our research.

January 2024

We are announcing a call for submission to a Special Issue we are editing in New Ideas in Psychology on the Probabilistic nature of perception and cognition.

This special issue aims to provide an interdisciplinary platform for papers that focus on bridging critical gaps between the theoretical and the empirical merits of probabilistic theories of perception and cognition by assessing their explanatory value in Psychology.

New Ideas in Psychology is a journal for theoretical psychology in its broadest sense. We are looking for new and seminal ideas from within Psychology and other fields with something to bring to Psychology. We welcome presentations and criticisms of theory, background metaphysics, and fundamental issues of method, both empirical and conceptual. We emphasize the need for informed discussion of psychological theories to be interdisciplinary. Empirical papers are accepted in this special issue, but we expect them to focus on conceptual issues and be theoretically creative.

Submission deadline: November 30, 2024

For more information: Please visit the call-for-papers page on the journal’s website

Guest editors:

Omer Daglar Tanrikulu,
University of New Hampshire
Email: omerdaglar.tanrikulu@unh.edu

Árni Kristjánsson
University of Iceland
Email: ak@hi.is

October 2023

Our lab will be hiring a Ph.D. student starting in the Fall semester of 2024.

The student will join a vibrant research community with an extensive international network of collaborators. The research will focus on computational approaches to perceptual grouping and organization. The student will have access to a state-of-the-art VR set-up with an integrated eye-tracking system.

The (full-time) PhD student will join the Brain, Behavior and Cognition track in the Psychology PhD program at UNH. Our graduate psychology program has been recognized by the American Psychological Association for Innovation in Graduate Education in Psychology. Besides getting significant experience in conducting your independent research project under the guidance of experienced faculty, you will also gain significant teaching training through our Practicum and Seminar in the Teaching of Psychology.

To get more information about the position, please do not hesitate to contact the PI at ot1031@unh.edu . To apply, please send a cover letter, names of 2-3 references, CV, and academic transcripts to ot1031@unh.edu.

To learn more about the Psychology PhD program at UNH, please visit: https://cola.unh.edu/psychology/program/phd/psychology

Required Experience and Education:

Previous experience working in a research lab
Bachelor’s degree in psychology, cognitive science, computer science, philosophy, neuroscience, or a related field.

Preferred Qualifications:

Experience in coding in Python, Matlab or R
Interest in cognitive science and visual perception research

June 2023

The Philosophy Department at the University of New Hampshire is organizing a summer reading group to focus on Merleau-Ponty’s ideas on perception. Our lab will be contributing to the reading group to understand Merleau-Ponty’s criticism of how vision science is done.

May 2023

Our first paper using Virtual Reality is now out. In this work, we looked at serial dependence in orientation judgments of daily-life objects in 3D. We found larger positive serial biases for rotations in the depth plane. However, we found no evidence for object-level selectivity in serial dependence.

April 2023

Congratulations to Kaleb Ducharme, who won the "2023 Undergraduate Research Conference Certificate of Excellence" for his work on ensemble perception of size in Virtual Reality environment.