Melissa Schoenlein

Research Interests: Visual perception, color cognition, learning and transfer

Research Advisor:  Karen Schloss

Schloss Visual Reasoning Lab:  schlosslab.discovery.wisc.edu

My vision research largely lies in understanding aspects of visual perception and cognition. As a researcher in the Visual Reasoning Lab in the Psychology department and Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, my work focuses on understanding how people form conceptual inferences from visual input. In particular I study how people form color-concept associations that are used to make inferences about the meanings of colors. I also study how using color as a grouping mechanism might enable transfer of knowledge across concepts. My work has implications for understanding the processes that support human visual perception and cognition, and for applying such knowledge to designing effective information visualizations. I also aim to direct these research questions to educational settings to better understand how visual features can enhance or hinder learning in the classroom.