Zoe (Jing) Xu

Welcome to my webpage! 

My name is Zoe. I am a Research Assistant Professor at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). Before joining HKUST, I was a post-doctoral scholar with Dr. Scott Murray at the University of Washington. I obtained my Ph.D. in Psychology with Drs. Simona Buetti and Alejandro Lleras at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (UIUC). 

My research focuses on answering a fairly simple but all-encompassing question: how do people see things?

For example, how do people see complex visual objects? Using the paradigm of visual search - quantifying the performance of "seeing" something by measuring how fast people find it in the environment - I computationally model, both behaviorally (i.e., response times) and neurologically (i.e., brain activity), how different visual features (i.e., color, shape, texture, etc.) combine in the human visual system to form an overall impression of the object.

I also study the visual search behavior itself and identify factors influencing search performance. For example, when looking for an apple in a basket, how does the number of oranges in the basket affect your search time? Will you search faster if the apple is surrounded by bananas instead of oranges? What about when there is a mixture of oranges, bananas, and grapefruits?

In addition, I study how people’s visual search performance varies as a function of their predispositions. For instance, I test whether search abilities and styles are associated with visual working memory, object recognition ability, action video game expertise, and neurodiversity (e.g., autistic vs. non-autistic individuals). 

I use different research methodologies including behavioral psychophysics, eye-tracking, neuroimaging, and computational modeling, and I use Python, MATLAB, JavaScript and R for experiment programming and data analysis.

Please check out my publications and CV to learn more about my research!