Welcome! I am a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles working with Hongjing Lu in the Computational Vision and Learning Laboratory. In August 2024, I will start as an Assistant Professor at Ohio University. My lab will focus on uncovering the computational goal of various aspects of perception and cognition, using both behavioral and computational modeling methods. A new website will be coming soon. In the mean time, feel free to contact me for information regarding my new lab. Besides my official name Yi-Chia Chen, I have also come to accept the name of Ya-Chia (means duck nice in Chinese), since this name often receives questions, feedback, letters, and awards on my behalf.
Before coming to UCLA, I did a postdoc with George Alvarez and Talia Konkle in the Vision Sciences Laboratory. I did my graduate work at Yale University, working with Brian Scholl in the Perception & Cognition lab, and my undergraduate work at National Taiwan University with Su-Ling Yeh in the Perception & Attention Laboratory.
You can view my CV here.
A primary research focus of mine is how basic visual processes interact with higher-level aspects of perception. For example, I have been interested in how visual aesthetics can influence other aspects of visual processing, including the possibility that visual aesthetics are driven in part by more basic visual mechanisms (e.g., Chen & Scholl, 2014; Chen, Colombatto, & Scholl, 2018). I have also explored how implicit inferences about causal history of objects (that we would typically associate with higher-level thoughts) are actually parts of perceptual shape representation, to the extent that they can induce apparent motion (Chen & Scholl, 2016).
Contact: yichiachen@g.ucla.edu
歡迎！我的中文名是陳怡嘉，在加州大學洛杉磯分校擔任博士後研究員，由 Hongjing Lu 教授指導，於視覺與學習模型實驗室中進行研究。西元2024年8月開始，我將於俄亥俄大學心理學系擔任助理教授。我的實驗室主要探索知覺與認知各方面在人類生活中所展現的功能。新網站正在創建當中，敬請期待。如有關於我的新實驗室的問題，歡迎寄信聯絡我詢問。順帶一提，除了我的本名怡嘉外，使用英語的人也叫我鴨嘉，因為拼音是世界人民共同的挑戰。
過去我曾在哈佛大學擔任博士後研究員，由 George Alvarez 教授與 Talia Konkle 教授指導，於視覺科學實驗室中進行研究。我博士畢業自耶魯大學，在知覺與認知實驗室中受 Brian Scholl 教授指導。大學時代我在國立臺灣大學 Suling Yeh 教授的知覺與注意力實驗室進行研究。
詳見履歷。
我目前最有興趣的研究問題是：我們張眼究竟能看見什麼？這問題聽來奇怪，但我的研究發現人能看見的遠超過一般所認為的亮度、色彩、東西移動所造成的光影變化等等，而進一步包含了美感（請見：Chen & Scholl, 2014；Chen, Colombatto, & Scholl, 2018）、形狀變化的歷史過程（Chen & Scholl, 2016）、他人的心理狀態（Chen, Colombatto, & Scholl, 2020）。所謂看到這些訊息是什麼意思呢？如同我們看見色彩一樣，這些較複雜的訊息不倚賴額外的思考，目視即見，無須經過意識即可被快速地自動化分析，影響我們的日常生活。（當然，「非必要」並不同於無法有意識地考量這些生活的複雜面向，就如同我們可以思量色彩一般，我們依然可以選擇去思考這些複雜訊息。）