Melina Mueller receives 2026 Anchor Award

April 15, 2026

Melina Mueller has been selected as a 2026 Anchor Awards recipient in the category of Department Leadership. The Anchor Awards recognize outstanding service, mentorship, departmental leadership, student advocacy, and research contributions at Vanderbilt.

From her nomination letter: “Melina has transformed the social and intellectual culture of Wilson Hall through sustained initiative that goes well beyond what is expected of any graduate student, let alone one early in her training. She leads through action and example, by showing up, stepping up outside her comfort zone, and creating opportunities for connection and growth across the department.”

Melina will be formally recognized at the Anchor Awards Ceremony on Saturday, April 18. Congratulations, Melina!

OPL and CATlab at BrainBlast

March 24, 2026

Last week, OPL and CATlab grad students Melina Mueller, Yinuo Peng, Ikhwan Jeon, and Jin Jeong participated in BrainBlast, introducing kids and curious adults to challenging tasks with faces and other objects that we use to study perception.

Conor Smithson's Prolific 2026 so far...

March 22, 2026

Conor Smithson has had a productive year, with five papers published or in press spanning object recognition ability, as well as recognition of food and scenes, cross-modal individual differences and episodic memory:

• Our Annual Review of Psychology article asks whether domain-general object recognition ability is a novel construct
• In Cognition, we show attention control contributes to ensemble perception regardless of selection demands
• In Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, we introduce scene proximity judgments to study food-specific recognition
• In Psychological Research with Nurit Gronau, we demonstrate that object recognition ability predicts episodic location memory
• In JEP:General, we link visual and auditory object recognition to spatial ability

See Publications for details.

New Study: Object Recognition Ability Predicts AI Face Detection

January 30, 2026

A new study from the Object Perception Lab reveals that object recognition ability—not intelligence, AI experience, or face recognition skills—is the strongest predictor of who can identify AI-generated faces. The research, led by Isabel Gauthier with Jason Chow and Rankin McGugin, developed the AI Face Test to measure individual differences in distinguishing real from AI-generated faces.

Upcoming VSS 2026 Presentations

December 15, 2025

Upcoming presentations from OPL members and collaborators at VSS 2026:

• Muller, M., Dobbins, I. & Gauthier, I. Visual Abilities Predict the Content and Quality of Image Descriptions.
• Chun, T.-Y., Cha, O., Bi, Y., & Gauthier, I. A Common Ensemble Perception Factor for Objects and Faces Strongly Related to General Intelligence.
• Gauthier, I. Hyperrealism in AI face detection is context-dependent and predicted by object recognition ability.
• Smithson, C.J., Gronau, N., & Gauthier, I. High-level visual discrimination abilities predict memory for image location as a function of meaningfulness.

Annual Review: Is domain-general object recognition ability a novel construct?

December 10, 2025

Conor and Isabel’s Annual Review, “Is domain-general object recognition ability a novel construct?” is now available in Annual Review of Psychology.

Congratulations Dr. Smithson!

November 05, 2025

Conor defended his thesis on Nov 5, “The Structure and Correlates of Domain-general Object Recognition Ability”!

Isabel speaks at the Blue Room

August 15, 2025

Isabel speaks at the Blue Room (read more at WPLN News).