Vision science asks how we see: how the eye captures light, how the brain turns it into objects, scenes, and decisions, what happens when that process fails, and how to build machines and displays that work with it.

At the University of Iowa, that work is spread across psychology, medicine, and engineering. The Vision Sciences Association at Iowa connects the people doing it.

Areas we cover

If it involves seeing, we are interested.

Neuroscience

How neural circuits carry and transform visual signals, from the retina through the cortex.

Attention

How the brain selects what matters from everything in view.

Memory

How visual information is held in mind and used to guide what we do next.

Eye movements

Where we look, when, and why, and what gaze reveals about thinking.

Perceptual decision making

How visual evidence becomes a judgment or a choice.

Perception and psychophysics

Measuring the relationship between the physical world and what we see.

Human factors

Designing vehicles, displays, and tools around the limits and strengths of human vision.

Computer vision

Teaching machines to interpret images, from faces to retinal scans.

AR and VR

Building and studying augmented and virtual displays, and how people perceive space in them.

Ophthalmology

Understanding, diagnosing, and treating diseases of the eye.

Optometry

Clinical care for vision and visual function.

Your field

Work on vision in an area that is not listed? We want to hear from you.

Where vision research happens at Iowa

Vision research on campus runs through several colleges. These are some of the groups doing it.

Visual Perception research group

Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. How the brain turns patterns of light into objects, surfaces, and scenes, and how attention selects what is relevant.

Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences

Carver College of Medicine. Clinical care and research spanning genetics, regenerative medicine, machine learning, and clinical trials.

Institute for Vision Research

Interdisciplinary research, education, and clinical care aimed at ending human blindness.

Iowa Institute for Biomedical Imaging

Biomedical imaging research across colleges, including image-based analysis of eye disease and retinal OCT.

Driving Safety Research Institute

Research on the connection between humans and vehicles, including driving simulation.

Hank Virtual Environments Laboratory

How experience in real and virtual environments shapes the way people perceive distance and act on it.

Iowa Neuroscience Institute

Research across campus on the brain and nervous system, including sensory systems.

These groups are listed to show the range of vision research on campus. A listing does not imply a formal affiliation with the Vision Sciences Association at Iowa.

Is your lab or group missing?

Tell us what you work on and we will add it. We are always looking for more vision research to connect.

Email us