Directed by Prof. Dr. Nikolaus Troje, the lab is located at York University in Toronto, Ontario.

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Goals

Our main research interest is focused on questions concerning the nature of perceptual representations. How can a stream of noisy nerve cell excitations possibly be turned into the coherent and predictable perception of a “reality”? We work on questions involving the processing of sensory information, perception, cognition and communication.

Topics

People perception: The biology and psychology of social recognition

• detection of animate agents
• conspecific recognition
• gender recognition
• individual recognition
• action recognition
• recognition of emotions, personality traits and intentionality
• recognition of bodies, faces, and biological motion

Vision in virtual reality

• pictorial vs physical spaces
• space perception
• simulator sickness
• perception of self-motion (vection)
• multisensory integration
• perception of the own body
• the nature of presence

Visual ambiguities and perceptual biases

• depth ambiguities
• the “facing-the-viewer” bias

Network

Since moving to York University in 2018, the Biomotion Lab has become an integral part of the multi-departmental Centre for Vision Research. Its main affiliation is with the Department of Biology in the Faculty of Science.

Students in the Biomotion Lab come from different graduate programs:

• Biology @ YorkU
• Psychology @ YorkU
• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science @ YorkU
• International Graduate School “The Brain in Action”
• Centre for Neuroscience Studies @ Queen’s University

Dr. Troje is a core member of the CFREF funded program “Vision: Science to Application” (VISTA). Other funding comes from

• NSERC
• CFI
• CIFAR

Other important affiliations include:

• Canadian Action and Perception Network (CAPnet)
• Vision Science Society