About us

Saitama University (SU) Vision Lab. was established on 1st. April, 2021 in the Department of Information & Computer Sciences, Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Saitama University, Japan.
Saitama University is one of the National Universities of Japan with a compact "all-in-one" campus, located near the north border of Tokyo Metropolis (one hour by train and bus from Tokyo Sta.). It has a wide variety of graduate programs including the Graduate School (G.S.) of Humanities, G.S. of Social Sciences, and G.S. of Education, in addition to the G.S. of Science and Engineering.

Our goal is to understand the mechanisms of visual information processing in human brains and its application for engineering.

We particularly study how we see colors by using various methods to approach; psychophysics, neuroscience (functional brain imaging; fMRI, EEG), and numerical models including deep neural networks. Color is a very unique sensation of human vision, which has no reference in other sensory modality. We usually consider that everyone's experiences are more or less similar, but we often encounter huge individual differences in color perception (e.g., the color perception of #TheDress image). What are common and what are not, and why? These are our main research questions.

Also see our web page about on-going research project, supported by JSPS KAKENHI class A (科研費 基盤A).Please contact me (ikuriki_at_mail.saitama-u.ac.jp), if interested in collaborating with us.

Quick links

• Lab members , Ichiro Kuriki (PI)

• How to join our lab/ how to work with us?

• Archived programmes of past Color and Material Perception Meetings.

Topics of activities

1. A students paper on the basic feature of fMRI recordings was accepted by VISION, the Journal of the Vision Society of Japan (1/15/2025).
   A peer-reviewed full-paper authored by Mr. Shunsuke Takano, Dr. Kenichi Ueno (RIKEN CBS) and me was accepted. The title is "Effects of inter-stimulus interval on the analysis of color representation in human visual cortex in functional MRI." Waiting for the notice of publication.

2. Presented an invited (keynote) talk at Asia Color Association 2024 at Bangkok, Thailand (11/15/2024)
   # Thanks to Prof. Pichayada Katemake, Prof. Janprapa Poungsuwan and other organizers for the kind invitation.

3. Presented a talk at International Colour Vision Society 2024 (7/8/2024)

4. A paper on our fMRI studies on the interactions of luminance and color-defined motion has been accepted. (7/5/2024)
   Many thanks to the past MC students (Ms. Weijing Ren and Wakana Koshizaka) at Tohoku University. Expected to be published by the end of August. 

5. Presented a poster about material perception (translucency and glossiness) at Vision Sciences Society (VSS) 2024 (5/19/2024)

6. Will give an invited talk at RIKEN CBS . (4/13/2024)
   # invitation by Dr. Allen R Waggoner (RIKEN CBS).

7. My grant application for JSPS Kakenhi (class A) was accepted (4/1/2024). Four years more to go!

8. Dr. Mauro Costagli (University of Genoa, Italy) visited us (3/26/2024).

9. Drs Matteo Toscani and Anna Metzger (Bournmouth University, U.K.) visited us (3/22-23/2024).

10. Mr.  Kosuke Kimura (M1 student) has achieved the Best Presentation Award for his talk presented at the winter meeting of Vision Society of Japan, at Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan. Congratulations! (1/19/2024).

11. Presented a poster (about cortical representation of color appearance and color categories) at Neuroscience 2023 meeting (Society for Neuroscience) at Washington, D.C., U.S.A. Authors were I. Kuriki, T. Arima, T. Hamano, S. Takano (Saitama U), and K. Ueno (RIKEN CBS). (11/13/2023).

12. Well give a talk on our recent studies on the cortical representation of color at the "Consciousness talk," hosted by a study group on "Qualia structure" (6/9/2023).

13. Dr. Hiroaki Kiyokawa has joined our lab as Assistant Professor. Welcome! (4/1/2023)

14. My grant application for JSPS Kakenhi "Deep Shitsukan" has been accepted (4/1/2023)

15. Mr. Takato Arima (M1 student) has achieved the Best Presentation Award for his poster presented at the summer meeting of Vision Society of Japan, at Kanazawa University, Ishikawa Pref., Japan. Congratulations! (9/7/2022)

16. Two grant applications (as PI) were accepted. One is for the study on color appearance mechanisms by using DNN (JSPS Kakenhi for Challenging Exploratory study: 挑戦的萌芽研究) . This is a three year project by collaboration with Takashi Shinozaki at Kindai Univ.  Another is for a study of the effect of colorization to black-and-white image on the sense of reality (JSPS Kakenhi as a part of Transofrmation Research Area (A) "Deep Shitsukan (深奥質感)").

17. Will give an invited talk at International Display Workshop (IDW) 2021. (12/2/2021)

18. Gave an invited talk at a symposium on the variability of color vision in Summer meeting of the Vision Society of Japan 2021 (9/23/2021)

19. Gave an invited lecture at colloquium (Zoom) of Giessen University, Germany (6/9/2021)
    # invitation by Prof. Karl Gegenfurtner.

20. Gave an invited lecture (Zoom) at Department of Psychology, Graduate school of Letters, University of Tokyo, Japan. (5/31/2021)
    # invitation by Prof. Kazuhiko Yokosawa.

21. Gave an invited talk (Zoom) at a Molecular Imaging Conference, hosted by Kumamoto University, Japan (5/27/2021, AM)
    # invitation by Prof. Hiroaki Terasawa.

22. Presented posters at Virtual VSS (Vision Sciences Society) about recent progress in the hue selectivity of SSVEP responses in adults and in infants (5/21-26/2021)

23. Video recordings of my talk at Colour Group GB (6th January) is available on their YouTube channel (confirmed on 7/7/2021).

24. SU Vision Lab was established and four undergraduate students joined! (4/1/2021)