Publications

Using Gibbs Sampling with People to characterize perceptual and aesthetic evaluations in multidimensional visual stimulus space

Aesthetic appreciation is inherently multidimensional: many different stimulus dimensions (e.g., colors, shapes, sizes) contribute to …

An efficient Bayesian observer model of attractive and repulsive temporal context effects when perceiving multistable dot lattices

In multistable dot lattices, the orientation we perceive is attracted toward the orientation we perceived in the immediately preceding …

A cross-cultural comparison of aesthetic preferences for neatly organized compositions: Native Chinese- vs. native Dutch-speaking samples

Do aesthetic preferences for images of neatly organized compositions (e.g., images collected on blogs like Things Organized Neatly©) …

Prägnanz in visual perception

How do we perceptually and cognitively organize incoming stimulation? A century ago, Gestalt psychologists posited the law of Prägnanz: …

Towards the most prägnant Gestalt: Leveling and sharpening as contextually dependent adaptive strategies

Gestalt psychologists posited that we always organize our visual input in the best way possible under the given conditions. Both …

What good is goodness? The effects of reference points on discrimination and categorization of shapes

Earlier research reported a category boundary effect on perception: Differences between stimuli belonging to the same category are …

Prägnanz in visual perception and aesthetic appreciation: Interactions between stimulus, person, and context [Doctoral dissertation]

Things look as they do, not only because of the visual input an individual receives, but also because of the way in which the viewer …

The Order & Complexity Toolbox for Aesthetics (OCTA): A systematic approach to study the relations between order, complexity, and aesthetic appreciation

Do individuals prefer stimuli that are ordered or chaotic, simple or complex, or that strike the right balance of order and complexity? …

Same stimulus, same temporal context, different percept? Individual differences in hysteresis and adaptation when perceiving multistable dot lattices

How we perceptually organize a visual stimulus depends not only on the stimulus itself, but also on the temporal and spatial context in …

Order, complexity, and aesthetic preferences for neatly organized compositions

Why do people like images of neatly organized compositions, collected on blogs like Things Organized Neatly©? We explored which factors …

Order, complexity, and aesthetic appreciation

Which stimulus and person characteristics determine aesthetic appreciation? For many centuries, philosophers and scientists have been …

When praising yourself insults others: Self-superiority claims provoke aggression

We tested the prediction, derived from the hubris hypothesis, that bragging might serve as a verbal provocation and thus enhance …

Insights for Impact: Big Data

Reference: Haastrup, L., Knapová, L., Orhon, A., Van Geert, E., & Matz, S. C. (2016). Big Data. In K. Ruggeri (Ed.), Insights for Impact, 1 (pp. 27-32). Cambridge, U.K. Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge.

Study protocol on intentional distortion in personality assessment: Relationship with test format, culture, and cognitive ability

Self-report personality questionnaires, traditionally offered in a graded-scale format, are widely used in high-stakes contexts such as …