Social Perception Seminar 2026
Date: Wednesday 1st April 2026
Location: InnovaLab
Join us for an afternoon exploring how we process where other people are looking!
Talks will cover topics such as the different responses people have to real life eyes versus pictures of eyes, the effects that another's eye direction has on how we see and remember the items being looked at by another person, and how we process multiple gaze cues at the same time.
Invited Talk
Prof. Gregory Davis
University of Cambridge
Student Talks
Petra Šarić
University of Rijeka
Vinoprasath Shivakumar
University of Rijeka
Invited Talk: Prof. Greg Davis
12.00 - 13.00 | InnovaLab Three Puzzles of Human Eye Gaze Perception Eyes are unique among the objects we perceive around us. As ‘mirrors of the mind’ they are visible conduits to others’ attention and intentions. Eyes’ physical characteristics and association with others’ conscious perception also make human perception of eyes a multi-faceted topic – one well-suited to reveal the relationship between beliefs and perception. Here, I discuss human perception of eye gaze with regard to three puzzles: (1) how our knowledge that some eyes are live changes our cognition and perception, (2) what expectations an observer may have about another’s gaze and (3) whether our perception of eye gaze changes when we perceive multiple pairs in a group of people. For each puzzle, I present my group’s recent findings, some context and some possible future directions.
Student Talk: Petra Šarić
13.15 - 13.30 | InnovaLab What’s attention got to do with it? The effect of (non)social prompts on implicit mentalising
Student Talk: Vinoprasath Shivakumar
13.30 - 13.45 | InnovaLab "Does gaze cueing improve working memory for verbal items?"
This event has been funded by the HRZZ as part of the Automatic Theory of Mind project. UIP-2025-02-6677