Profile
Ben van Buren studies visual perception and cognition and directs the New School Perception Laboratory http://www.nssrperception.com/.
In one line of research, Ben investigates how we perceive seemingly invisible things. We don't just see that objects are moving — we also see why they are moving. We irresistibly perceive objects' movements as caused by physical forces acting on them, or as directed toward particular goals (such as the intention to chase a target), if they move in specific ways. Ben studies what drives these intriguing perceptual phenomena, and how they provide a foundation for our subsequent physical and social understanding of the world.
In another line of work, together with collaborators in the Psychology department and at Parsons School of Design, Ben conducts experiments to study how specific processes of visual perception and attention support downstream cognitive, affective and motor processes in design contexts. For example, recent projects from the Perception Lab have demonstrated how designers can leverage knowledge about early, automatic visual processing to aid observers' understanding of what icons are intended to communicate, and to influence whether players experience competetive games as fair or unfair.
Ben teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on visual perception and cognition and behavioral research methods. Together with Professor Colleen Macklin at Parsons, he teaches an applied psychology and design seminar focused on game UX design, which is typically taken by graduate students in the Psychology and Design & Technology programs.
Degrees Held
Ph.D., Cognitive Psychology (Yale University)
B.A., Cognitive Science, Philosophy (University of Pennsylvania)
Professional Affiliation
Ben serves on the Editorial Boards of the journals Cognition and Art & Perception, and is a member of the following professional societies:
Cognitive Sciences Society
Human Factors & Ergonomics Society
Psychonomic Society
Vision Sciences Society
Recent Publications
For a complete list of publications, please visit Ben's Google Scholar page.
Sample publications:
Dunin, D., Ongchoco, J. D. K., and van Buren, B. F. (2025). Remembering facial
age: Assimilation in memory toward categories of ‘Young’ and ‘Old’. Cognition, 264, 106223. PDF
Nguyen, H. B., and van Buren, B. F. (2024). Attentional transplants for industrial applications. In Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality & 3D User Interfaces, pp. 291-293. [Conference Proceedings] PDF
Nguyen, H. B., and van Buren, B. (2024). Rotating objects cue spatial attention via the perception of frictive surface contact. Cognition, 242, 1-9. PDF
Nguyen, H. B., and van Buren, B. (2023). May the Force be against you: Better visual sensitivity to speed changes opposite to gravity. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 49, 1016-1030. PDF
Ritchie, J. B., and van Buren, B. (2020). When scenes look like Materials: The reversable figure-ground motif in the paintings of René Magritte. Art and Perception, 8, 1-12. PDF
van Buren, B., and Scholl, B. J. (2018). Visual illusions as a tool for dissociating seeing from thinking. Perception, 47, 999-1001. PDF
van Buren, B., and Scholl, B. J. (2017). Minds in motion in memory: Enhanced spatial memory driven by the perceived animacy of simple shapes. Cognition, 163, 87-92. PDF
van Buren, B., Bromberger, B., Potts, D., and Chatterjee, A. (2013). Changes in painting styles of two artists with Alzheimer's disease. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 7, 89-94. PDF
Performances and Appearances
Upcoming:
Duan, X. Y., Macklin, M., & van Buren (2026). Delay in the system: Immediate auditory feedback speeds visuomotor delay adaptation in video games. Talk to be given at the annual meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 10/13/26, Reno, NV.
Pace, M., Bury, T., & van Buren, B. (2026). Vision science meets public policy: Implied motion in accessibility icons drives attention, interpretations, and motor responses. Talk to be given at the annual meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 10/13/26, Reno, NV.
Past:
Nguyen, H. B., & van Buren, B. (2026). Pushing the envelope: Active viewing drives boundary extension. Talk given at the annual meeting of the European Conference on Visual Perception, 8/24/26, Bournemouth, UK. **Winner of a Talk Award.**
Matelsky, L. P., Macklin, M., & van Buren, B. (2026). A headwinds bias in visual attention: Selective detection of self-disadvantaging changes in a game of Pong. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Visual Science of Art Conference, 8/20/26, London, UK.
Duan, X. Y., Macklin, M., & van Buren, B. (2026). Immediate auditory feedback speeds visuomotor delay adaptation in video games. Poster presented at the Applied Vision Science Meeting, 5/20/26, St. Pete Beach, FL.
Pace, M., Bury, T., & van Buren, B. (2026). Vision science meets public policy: Implied motion in accessibility icons drives attention, interpretations, and motor responses. Talk given at the Applied Vision Science Meeting, 5/20/26, St. Pete Beach, FL.
Lassise, S., Pace, M., & van Buren, B. (2026). Can a hole have a goal? Effects of figure/ground cues on the detection and evasion of chasing in a ‘don’t-get-caught’ task. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, 5/18/26, St. Pete Beach, FL.
Matelsky, L. P., Macklin, M., & van Buren, B. (2026). A headwinds bias in visual attention: Selective detection of self-disadvantaging changes in a game of Pong. Talk given at the annual meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, 5/15/26, St. Pete Beach, FL.
Duan, X. Y., Macklin, M., & van Buren (2026). Immediate auditory feedback speeds visuomotor delay adaptation in video games. Poster presented at the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 5/17/26, Barcelona, Spain.
van Buren, B. (2026). Visual selective attention for aesthetics and communication design. Talk given at the CUNY Cognitive Science Speaker Series, 4/17/26.
Dunin, D., Ongchoco, J. D. K., & van Buren, B. (2025). An older bias or an elder bias?: Memory biases for old faces reflect assimilation toward an old-age category center. Poster presented at the Psychonomics Society Conference, 11/21/25, Denver, Colorado.
Duan, X. Y., Macklin, C., & van Buren, B. (2025). Immediate auditory feedback speeds visuomotor delay adaptation in video games. Poster presented at the Object Perception & Memory Conference, 11/20/25, Denver, Colorado.
Nguyen, H. B., & van Buren, B. (2025). Pushing the envelope: Active viewing drives boundary extension. Poster presented at the Object Perception & Memory Conference, 11/20/25, Denver, Colorado.
van Buren, B. (2025). Reverse correlation for design. Talk given at the Visual Properties Driving Visual Preferences/Empirical Aesthetics for Design Workshop, 9/19/25, Venice, Italy.
van Buren, B. (2025). Getting language out of the picture: Methods for isolating the contributions of visual processing in empirical aesthetics. Talk given at the annual meeting of the Conference on the Image, 9/12/25, Paris, France.
van Buren, B., & Macklin, C. (2025). Perception in Virtual Worlds: Psychology and design students collaborate to study user experience in videogames. Talk given at the Game UX Summit, 9/8/25, Antwerp, Belgium.
Dunin, D., & van Buren, B. (2025). Celebrity EYE-Q: Holistic face processing in a tabletop game. Demo presented at the European Conference on Visual Perception, 8/29/25, Mainz, Germany.
Pace, M., Bury, T., & van Buren, B. (2025). Implied motion in accessibility icons: Perceived facing direction automatically primes directionally corresponding motor responses. Talk given at the annual meeting of the European Conference on Visual Perception, 8/28/25, Mainz, Germany.
Nguyen, H. B., & van Buren, B. (2025). Perceiving goal-directed movement in simple shapes: From prediction to preferences. Talk given at the annual meeting of the European Conference on Visual Perception, 8/26/25, Mainz, Germany.
Dunin, D., & van Buren, B. (2025). Celebrity EYE-Q: Holistic face processing in a tabletop game. Demo presented at the Visual Science of Art Conference, 8/23/25, Wiesbaden, Germany.
Nguyen, H. B., & van Buren, B. (2025). Perceiving goal-directed movement in simple shapes: From prediction to preferences. Talk given at the Visual Science of Art Conference, 8/22/25, Wiesbaden, Germany.
van Buren, B. & Nguyen, H. B. (2025). Attentional dynamics drive aesthetic preferences for scenes. Talk given at the Visual Science of Art Conference, 8/22/25, Wiesbaden, Germany.
Dunin, D., Ongchoco, J. D. K., & van Buren, B. (2025). Remembering facial age: Assimilation in memory toward categories of ‘Young’ and ‘Old’. Invited talk presented at the American Psychological Society meeting, 5/24/25, Washington D.C.
Dunin, D., & van Buren, B. (2025). Celebrity EYE-Q: Holistic face processing in a tabletop game. Demo presented at the Vision Sciences Society, 5/19/25, St. Pete’s Beach, FL. Press coverage (blog of Dr. Benjamin Balas).
Nguyen, H. B., & van Buren, B. (2025). Good intentions: Observers prefer viewing moving shapes which look goal-directed. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, 5/17/25, St. Pete Beach, FL. [Abstract published in Journal of Vision, 25(9), 2784, https: //jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2809401.]
Dunin, D., Ongchoco, J. D. K, & van Buren, B. (2025). An older bias or an elder bias?: Do memory biases for old faces reflect assimilation toward an old-age extreme or toward an old-age category center? Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, 5/17/25, St. Pete Beach, FL. [Abstract published in Journal of Vision, 25(9), 2953, https: //jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2809246.]
Choudhury, S., Nguyen, H. B., & van Buren, B. (2024). The sound of shininess: Crossmodal influence of pitch on the perception of gloss. Talk given at the annual meeting of the Object Perception and Memory Conference, 11/21/24, New York, NY.
Ning, J. V., Li, T., Zhang, K. & van Buren, B. (2024). Aesthetic preferences for objects are viewpoint-dependent. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Object Perception and Memory Conference, 11/21/24, New York, NY.
van Buren, B., & Macklin, C. (2024). Perception in Virtual Worlds: Psychology and design students collaborate to study user experience in videogames. Talk given at the Human Factors & Ergonomics Society ASPIRE meeting, 9/9/24, Phoenix, AZ.
van Buren, B. (2024). Illusions of causality. Talk given at the University of Aberdeen’s Illusion of the Fortnight talk series, 10/8/24, Aberdeen, Scotland.
Ning, J. V., & van Buren, B. (2024). Forging a head: How external visual elements influence the perception of a shape’s facing direction. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Cognitive Sciences Society, 7/26/24, Rotterdam, Netherlands.
van Buren, B. (2024). Perceiving minds in motion. Talk given at the University of Waterloo, 6/12/24, Waterloo, Ontario. [Organizer: Dr. Clara Colombatto]
Nguyen, H. B., and van Buren, B. (2024). A machine-learning-powered visual tour guide for attentional disorders. Talk given at the annual meeting of the XR Accessibility Symposium, 6/7/2024, New York, NY.
Nguyen, H. B., & van Buren, B. (2024). ‘Attentional transplants’ cause recipients to like images similarly to donors: Evidence for inter-observer commonalities in how attention drives preferences. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, 5/21/24, St. Pete Beach, FL. [Abstract published in Journal of Vision, 24(10), 654, https: //jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2801073.]
Choudhury, S., Nguyen, H. B., & van Buren, B. (2024). The sound of shininess: Crossmodal influence of pitch on the perception of gloss. Talk given at the annual meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, 5/20/24, St. Pete Beach, FL. [Abstract published in Journal of Vision, 24(10), 1496, https: //jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2801608.]
Dunin, D., Ongchoco, J. D. K, & van Buren, B. (2024). Perceived age is distorted in visual memory: A phenomenon of “forward” and “backward” aging for faces. Talk given at the annual meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, 5/18/24, St. Pete Beach, FL. [Abstract published in Journal of Vision, 24(10), 606, https: //jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2801117.]
Ning, J. N., & van Buren, B. (2024). Forging a head: How internal axes and external visual elements determine a shape’s perceived facing direction. Talk given at the annual meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, 5/18/24, St. Pete Beach, FL. [Abstract published in Journal of Vision, 24(10), 763, https: //jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2800970.]
Nguyen, H. B., & van Buren, B. (2024). Look where you’re going!: Elongated shapes are preferred when they update their orientation to remain aligned with their heading. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the International Association of Empirical Aesthetics, 5/9/24, Palma, Spain.
Nguyen, H. B., and van Buren, B. (2024). ‘Attentional transplants’ for industrial applications. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the International Workshop on eXtended Reality, IEEE, 3/16/2024, Orlando, FL.
Nguyen, H. B., & van Buren, B. (2023). ‘Attentional transplants’ cause recipients to like images similarly to donors. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Object Perception and Memory Conference, 11/16/23, San Francisco, CA.
Ning, J. V., & van Buren, B. (2023). Forging a head: How external visual elements influence the perception of a shape’s facing direction. Talk given at the annual meeting of the Object Perception and Memory Conference, 11/16/23, San Francisco, CA.
Macklin, C., & van Buren, B. (2023). What games teach us about the appreciation of visual artworks. Talk given at the annual meeting of the Visual Science of Art Conference, 8/26/23, Cyprus, Greece.
Matelsky, L., Nguyen, H. B., Macklin, C., & van Buren, B. (2023). The face of mischief: A facial expression signaling play aggression. Talk given at the annual meeting of the Visual Science of Art Conference, 8/26/23, Cyprus, Greece.
Zhang, K., Huang, J., & van Buren, B. (2023). The automaticity of seeing in: Pictorial depth cues influence judgments of surrounding spatial relationships even when task-irrelevant. Poster presented at the meeting of the Visual Science of Art Conference, 8/26/23, Cyprus, Greece.
Nguyen, H. B., & van Buren, B. (2023). Attentional transplants cause recipients to like images similarly to donors. Talk given at the annual meeting of the Visual Science of Art Conference, 8/25/23, Cyprus, Greece.
Nguyen, H. B., & van Buren, B. (2023). That’s just how I roll!: Predicting and remembering objects’ locations via the perception of frictive surface contact. Talk given at the annual meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, 5/20/23, St. Pete Beach, FL. [Abstract published in Journal of Vision, 23(9), 4716, https: //jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2791781.]
Matelsky, L., Nguyen, H. B., Macklin, C., & van Buren, B. (2023). The face of mischief: A stereotyped signal of norm violation within a Magic Circle. Talk given at the annual meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, 5/20/23, St. Pete Beach, FL. [Abstract published in Journal of Vision, 23(9), 5968, https: //jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2792329.]
Zhang, K., Huang, J., & van Buren, B. (2023). The automaticity of seeing-in: Pictorial depth cues influence judgments of surrounding spatial relationships even when task-irrelevant. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, 5/20/23, St. Pete Beach, FL.
van Buren, B. (2023). Design for attention. Invited talk given at the Usability and Innovation workshop at IUAV University of Venice, 4/18/23, Venice, Italy.
Nguyen, H. B., & van Buren, B. (2022). Rotating objects cue spatial attention via the perception of frictive surface contact. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Object Perception and Memory Conference, 11/17/22, Boston, MA.
van Buren, B. (2022). Perceptual leverage points for design. Invited talk given at the Gestalt Approach for Design Research workshop at IUAV University of Venice, 10/10/22, Venice, Italy. [Organizer: Dr. Michele Sinico]
van Buren, B, & Macklin, C. (2022). Knowledge structures our perception of virtual worlds. Joint talk given at workshop on Perception in Games and Virtual Worlds, 9/2/22, Athens, Greece.
Ning, J. V., & van Buren, B. (2022). Thinking outside the box in the study of visual preferences: External elements determine ‘goodness’ judgments for a dot within a square frame. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the International Association of Empirical Aesthetics, 8/31/22, Philadelphia, PA.
Nguyen, H. B., & van Buren, B. (2022). Rotating objects cue spatial attention via the perception of frictive surface contact. Talk given at the annual meeting of the European Conference on Visual Perception, 8/31/22, virtual, Nijmegen, NL. [Abstract published in Perception, 51(IS), 1-207, https: //docta.ucm.es/rest/api/core/bitstreams/e03dad59-5826-47f9-98b0-6b6ead785f94/content.]
Nguyen, H. B., & van Buren, B. (2022). May the Force be against you: Better sensitivity to speed changes that appear self-propelled. Talk given at the annual meeting of the Cognitive Sciences Society, 7/30/22, virtual, Toronto, CA.
Ning, J. V., & van Buren, B. (2022). Thinking outside the box in the study of visual preferences: External elements determine ‘goodness’ judgments for a dot within a square frame. Talk given at the annual meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, 5/17/22, St. Pete Beach, FL. [Abstract published in Journal of Vision, 22(14), 4233, https: //jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2784816.]
Nguyen, H. B., & van Buren, B. (2022). Objects that look heavier look larger. Talk given at the annual meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, 5/14/22, St. Pete Beach, FL. [Abstract published in Journal of Vision, 22(14), 4394, https: //jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2785138.]
van Buren, B. (2022). Perceiving minds in motion. Invited talk given at Hunter College, 3/18/22, New York. [Organizer: Dr. Sandeep Prasada]
van Buren, B., Ritchie, J. B., Lefèvre, P., & Wagemans, J. (2021). What do visual narratives teach us about psychological event representations? Talk given at the annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, 11/5/21, Virtual. Co-organizer of overall symposium, ‘Beyond the Button Press: Studying the Mind through Drawings’.
Nguyen, H. B., & van Buren, B. (2021). May the Force be against you: Better sensitivity to speed changes that appear self-propelled. Talk given at the annual meeting of the Object Perception and Memory Conference, 11/4/21, Virtual. **Winner of Best Talk Award.**
van Buren, B., Ongchoco, J. K., & Scholl, B. J. (2021). Sensation and imagery combine to create hybrid object representations. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the European Conference for Visual Perception, 8/24/21, Virtual.
van Buren, B., Ritchie, J. B., Lefèvre, P., & Wagemans, J. (2020). Event representations omit stretches of time. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, 6/19/20, Virtual. [Abstract published in Journal of Vision, 20(11), 1536, https: //jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2771257.]
van Buren, B. (2019). Experimental methods for distinguishing seeing from thinking. Invited talk given at University of Pennsylvania, 10/23/19, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
van Buren, B. (2019). Perceiving minds in motion: The nature of perceived animacy. Invited talk given at University of Pennsylvania, 10/22/19, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Ritchie, J. B., & van Buren, B. (2019). When scenes look like materials: The reversible figure-ground motif in the paintings of René Magritte. Talk given at the annual meeting of the Visual Science of Art Conference, 8/23/19, Leuven, Belgium.
van Buren, B. (2019). Perceived intentionality as a Gestalt phenomenon: Grouping and global motion processing determine whether we see ‘chasing’ in simple shapes. Talk given at the annual meeting of the Belgian Association for Psychological Science, 5/14/19, Liège, Belgium.
Research Interests
Event Perception, Perceptual Organization, Applied Cognitive Science, Visual Science of Art