Meet the Team


Faculty

Aaron P. Johnson, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Psychology

1619622843737Dr. Johnson has been at Concordia since 2006. His research investigates human vision in real-world environments while performing real-world tasks. His research spans a range of areas from low-level computational models of vision, to applied research in the fields of marketing, aviation, and low-vision rehabilitation.

 

Rick Gurnsey, Ph.D.

Professor, Psychology

Rick GurnseyProf. Gurnsey has been a professor at Concordia since 1992. His research focuses on vision across the visual field, and on improving statistical analysis used in the field of Psychology. He has recently published a new textbook on Statistics for Research in Psychology, which focuses on confidence interval estimations.

 

Lucia Farisello, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Psychology

Lucy FariselloDr. Farisello has been at Concordia since 2014. Her research investigates psychophysiological and self-report measures of arousal to visually explicit sexual imagery and videos. She is also developing better self-report questionnaires to explore sexuality and arousal.

 

 

Walter Wittich, Ph.D.

Affiliate Professor, Psychology /  Assistant Professor, Optometry and Vision Science. 

Walter WittichProf. Wittich has been at the University of Montreal since 2014. His research investigates dual sensory impairments (e.g., vision and hearing loss), and how these may impact other areas of older adults health (e.g., Cognition).

Visual Impairment Research Lab @ UdM

 



 

Graduate Students

 

Maria Santaguida.

PhD Candidate (Research Option), Psychology

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Maria’s research investigates the acute effects of alcohol on individuals’ subjective and psychophysiological responses to visual sexual stimuli, using eye-tracking, genital thermography, and self-report measures. Her research also focuses on the role of sex-related alcohol expectancies in risky sexual decision making. More information 

 

Karine Elalouf, M.A.

Ph.D. Candidate (Research Option), Psychology

Karine ElaloufKarine’s research investigates how arousal can change our choices during decision-making. She uses the delayed discounting paradigm to explore this, exploring different commodities including money and sex.

 

 

 

Sam Clement-Coulson, M.A.

Ph.D. Candidate (Research Option), Psychology

Sam Clement-CoulsonSam’s research investigates human factors involved in aviation. He is interested in pilot training and the layout of the aviation flight deck (e.g., instrumentation). He also has interest in using physiological measures (eye tracking, heart rate, EEG) to assess pilot proficiency and ability to handle stressful situations that arise in the cockpit. More information

 

 

Zoey Stark, M.A.

Ph.D. Candidate (Research and Clinical Option), Psychology

Zoey StarkZoey’s research investigates how different font types (e.g., OpenDyslexic, Times New Roman) impacts reading performance in a Dyslexic population. She uses eye tracking to observe if the different fonts lead to changes in the characteristics of the eye movements, and changes to the attentional window.

 

 

 

 

 


Undergraduate Students

 

 

 


Alumni

Simon Dubé.

PhD  (Research Option), Psychology

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Simon’s research investigates erobotics – the study of human-machine erotic interaction and co-evolution – and space sexology – the study of extraterrestrial intimacy and sexuality. His doctoral thesis examines people’s motivations to engage erotically with artificial erotic agents (or erobots, such as virtual partners and sex robots), and the factors that may influence their willingness to have sex and fall in love with machines using self-report measures, eye-tracking, and genital thermography. His work also explores how to integrate sex research into space programs. Simon successfully defended his Ph.D. in September 2022, and is now a CIHR Postdoctoral Fellow at the Kinsey Institute for Sex, Gender and Reproduction at Indiana University.   More information

Austin Trudeau

MSc Marketing,  JMSB

Austin Trudeau

With a primary focus in behavioural economics and delayed discounting paradigms, Austin’s research surrounds the impact of emotional affect on decision-making. Having completed his undergraduate thesis, he went to the Marketing Department at the John Molson School of Business (Laboratory for Sensory Research) between 2018-2020.

 

 

 

 

Elliott Morrice, Ph.D.

PhD (Clinical & Research Option), Psychology

elliott_morriceElliott’s research investigates the impact of colour and light on reading in older adults, and those with visual impairment. Although frequently used in vision rehabilitation, the use of coloured lighting does not have much scientific basis. Elliott aims to provide the first evidence of the impact of coloured lighting, and which devices can be used to generate changes in reading performance. More information

Vanessa Soldano

Undergraduate / CURSA, Psychology

Vanessa’s research is investigating the psychometric properties of the Adult Dyslexia Checklist. Although used by many as a quick checklist for Dyslexia symptoms, the psychometric properties have not been adequately validated. Using previously collected data, plus online testing during COVID-19, Vanessa aims to collect enough data to conduct a validity analysis. Vanessa is now in the Masters of Vision Rehabilitation program at the University of Montreal. 

Sophie Hallot

Undergraduate, Psychology

Sophie HallottSophie’s work investigates how the Drusen in the retina on eye movement stability and functional vision. Sophie is now training to be a doctor at McGill Medical School.

 

 

 

 

Caitlin Murphy, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Fellow, Psychology / Applied Human Sciences

Caitlin MurphyDr. Murphy research investigates the physiology of the retina in individuals with visual impairment using the Scanning Laser Opthamoloscope imaging modality. Her research is building a database of images of individuals with visual impairment, with behavioural and cognitive measures, allowing both researchers and clinicians to better understand how vision loss impacts other areas of health. Caitlin now works in industry as a research group director at Charles Rivers Laboratories. 

 

 

Leon Franzen, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Fellow, Psychology / JMSB

Leon FranzenDr. Franzen is a horizon postdoctoral fellow with Prof. Johnson and Prof. Grohmann (JMSB). His doctoral research at the University of Glasgow investigated the perceptual mechanisms involved in Dyslexia. At Concordia, he will be working on visual marketing behaviour.

 

 

 

Brandon Huard

MSc Marketing, John Molson School of Business

Current Position: 

 

Arash Sharma

MSc Marketing, John Molson School of Business

Current Position: Innovation, Science and Economic Development, Government of Canada

 

Mathew Martin

MA (Research Option), Psychology

Matt MartinMatt’s MA thesis investigated how summary statistics are impacted by splitting attention across multiple visual features (e.g., size, orientation, colour).

Current Position: PhD Analytics, UQAM.

 

 

 

Julie Shilhan

Ph.D. (Clinical and Research Option), Psychology

Julie ShilhanJulie’s PhD thesis investigated the development of the a sexual Stroop task to psychophysically measure arousal in men and women.

Current Position: Clinical Private Practice, Sudbury / Assistant Professor, Guelph University.

 

 

Bruno Richard

MA & Ph.D. (Research Option), Psychology

Bruno RichardBruno’s PhD thesis investigated the mechanisms involved in the detection of manipulations in broadband spatial frequency contrast in images containing natural scene statistical relationships.

Current Position: Faculty, Rutgers University

 

 

John Brand

Ph.D. (Research Option), Psychology

John BrandJohn’s PhD thesis investigated the impact that attention has on rapid scene perception (i.e., scene gist).

Current Position: Research Associate, Dartmouth University.

 

 

Florian Grond

Postdoc, Psychology

Florian GrondFlorian’s research investigated the development and use of a mobile-phone friendly audio beacon for navigating around an indoor shopping mall.

Current Position: Research Associate, McGill University

 

 

 

Afroditi Panagapoulos

M.A. & Ph.D. (Research Option), Psychology

Afroditi PanagapoulosAfroditi’s PhD thesis explored how the splitting of attention impacts task performance.

Current Position: Faculty, John Abbott University

 

 

 

Angela Vavassis

M.A. & Ph.D. (Research Option), Psychology

Angela Vavassis

 

 

 

 

 

Undergraduate Thesis Students (thesis topic, current position)

2021-2022

Amanda Latulipe (Fixation Stability and balance, Masters in Low Vision Rehabilitation, University of Montreal)

Cheng Zhu (Validating advertising, Masters in User Experience, McGill University)

Émile Chabot

Madisson Williams (Erobotics, Research Coordinator, Dept Psychology, Concordia University).

Ramiya Veluppillai

William Edminston (Alcohol sexting expectancies, MA Clinical Psychology, University of Montreal). 

 

2020-2021

Juan Lopez (Unexpected flight orientations, MA Cognitive Science, Carleton University). 

Pia Karpowitz

Pierre Gaucher

Sloan Rowe 

Vanessa Soldano (Validation of the Adult Dyslexia Checklist, Masters in Low Vision Rehabilitation, University of Montreal)

Sophie Hallott (Fixation stability in low vision. McGill Medical School)

 

2019-2020

Alaa Boutelaa  (Impact of Laser Strike on Cognitive Load in Pilots)

Amanda Cabugao (Pupilometry to measure known and unknown branded objects.)

Lisa Thomasse (Does repetitive exposure to pornography reduce arousal? Clinical Psychology, University of Montreal)

Zoe Yarymowich (Association Between Men’s Sexual Attitudes and Behaviours Towards Women and Sexual Arousal to Sexually Aggressive Visual Stimuli)

 

2018-2019    

Corina Lacombe                    Anxiety Natural Scenes  Current Position: PhD Clin. Psych. Ottawa U.

Alexandra Connor                 Arousal Decision Making. Current Position: MA Clin. Psych. University of Montreal.

Zoey Stark                             Dyslexia reading  Current Position: MA Clin. Psych Concordia.

Aude Rouisse                        Retina scan visual function        Current Position: Low Vision Rehabilitation Program, UdM.

Stephanie Pietrangelo            Retina scan cognitive function   Current Position: Low Vision Rehabilitation Program, UdM.

 

2017-2018

Brandon Huard                      Driving Simulator

Austin Trudeau                      Delayed Discounting.

Sarah Raimi                           Digital Pegboard Low Vision

 

2016-2017 

Julien Hughes                       Cognitive Screen Low Vision. Current Position: McGill Medical School. 

 

2015-2016 

Lauren Gazzard                     Eye movement arousal. Current Position: PhD Clinical Psyc. McGill University.

Julien Rice                             EEG Scenes. Current Position: Ubisoft.

Joella Martire                        Low vision SLO-OCT, Current Position: New England College of Optometry in Boston

Saida Adisa                           Hearing and assistive device. Current Position: 

Arash Sharma                        Eye movement marketing.    Current Position: Gov. Canada.

 

2014-2015

Sarah Rassi                            Low vision shopping

Jake Applebaum                    Eye movement arousal

Yvette Essess                        Hybrid Search

Jessica Wilson                       Low vision iPad

Karine Elalouf                       Eye movement variability in video

 

2013-2014     

Michelle Bauer                      Sex arousal. Current Position: PhD Clinical Psyc. Ottawa U. 

Cassandra Fehr                      Colour Scene Processing. Current Position: PhD Clinical Psyc. Ottawa U. 

Marie-Eve Leclerc                 Sex arousal. Current Position: PhD Clinical Psyc. Ottawa U. 

Christina Nadon                    Low vision iPad. Current Position: Low Vision Rehabilitation, Lethbridge-Layton-Mackay Rehabilitation Centre, Montreal, QC.

Anna Sotnikova                     Low vision iPad

 

2012-2013     

Charlie Ohayon                     Scene Processing

Dara Heather                         tDSC Vision

2010-2011     

Johnathan Greggain              Scene perception and attention

Heather Woods-Fry              Macular Degeneration

Ata Hatami                            Rapid scene perception

 

2009-2010     

Dmitre Novikov                    Eye movement magic

James Graves                        Perceptual Learning

 

2008-2009 

Bruno Richard                       Concussion

Vanessa Doyon-Cadieux      Macular Degeneration

Sylvie Labertie                      Leaning tower illusion

 

2007-2008   

Sylvie Labertie                      Perception of Art

David Derry                          Contrast Natural Scenes

Anthony Paventi                  Properties fixated Scenes

Jessica Zang                          Colour Scene Recognition

Germaine Lam                      Amplitude discrimination