Sebastiaan Mathôt - Pupillary (Open) Science

Mindwise Podcast

http://www.cogsci.nl/ - his blog http://osdoc.cogsci.nl/ - OpenSesame Sebastiaan recently started working as an assistant professor at the Experimental Psychology department here in Groningen. In this episode, we get to meet him for the first time. His experimental work deals with vision, and more specifically- the study of pupillometry. He shares a lot of interesting findings about pupils, for example that covert attention (i.e. looking at an object with “your mind’s eye”, and not fixating your view on it) plays an interesting role in pupil size. He has a lifelong interest in computer science, but what made him decide to switch to studying cognition? How does computer science influence a modern researcher’s work? What are his tips for novices? Sebastiaan is also the creator of OpenSesame- a freeware alternative for designing psychology experiments. The second half of the podcast is an interesting conversation about open science, and possible ways to improve the paper-publishing cycle in the future! Be sure to check out his blog, linked above, and if you’re interested in experiment design- give OpenSesame a try!