Dr Maria Olkkonen

Personal web page

Contact Dr Maria Olkkonen (email at maria.olkkonen@durham.ac.uk)

Biography

 I received an M.A. in psychology with a minor in philosophy from the University of Helsinki in 2004, writing my master's thesis on the interaction between brightness and color information in the simultaneous contrast illusion. Working with Dr. Pentti Laurinen on my master's thesis made me realize what a powerful tool psychophysics is for studying psychological processes and neural computation. After working in corporate research at the Nokia Research Center for a while, I decided to go back to academia and was offered a PhD studentship with Prof. Karl Gegenfurtner at the University of Giessen. During my time in the lab, I learned color psychophysics and computer rendering, and received my PhD in 2009. To learn more about color and material constancy, I then moved to Philadelphia to work with Prof. David Brainard at UPenn. I learned to calibrate a high-dynamic range display and used it to understand the perception of glossiness and lightness under different natural light fields. While in Philadelphia, I also worked with Prof. Sarah Allred at Rutgers on the relationship between color memory and perception, and finally did a two-year project in Prof. Russell Epstein's lab learning about fMRI adaptation and MVPA methods. I've held an assistant professorship in Durham since September 2015.

Office hours

Wednesdays 14-15 (RH12)

Research Interests

• Color constancy
• Color perception
• Probabilistic inference
• Visual psychophysics, cognitive neuroscience

Selected Publications

Chapter in book

• Olkkonen, M & Ekroll, V (2016). Color constancy and contextual influences on color appearance. In Springer series in Vision Research. Human color constancy. Rigmor Baraas, Jan Kremers & J Marshal Springer.
• Olkkonen, M., Hansen, T. & Gegenfurtner, K. R. (2012). Higher-level perceptual influences on color appearance. In Visual Experience: Sensation, Cognition, and Constancy. Hatfield, G. & Allred, S. R. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 179-198.

Journal Article

• Virtanen, Lari S., Olkkonen, Maria & Saarela, Toni P. (2020). Color ensembles: Sampling and averaging spatial hue distributions. Journal of Vision 20(5): 1-14.
• Aston, Stacey, Denisova, Kristina, Hurlbert, Anya, Olkkonen, Maria, Pearce, Bradley, Rudd, Michael, Werner, Annette & Xiao, Bei (2020). Exploring the Determinants of Color Perception Using #Thedress and Its Variants: The Role of Spatio-Chromatic Context, Chromatic Illumination, and Material–Light Interaction. Perception 49(11): 1235-1251.
• Peromaa, Tarja & Olkkonen, Maria (2019). Red color facilitates the detection of facial anger — But how much?. PLOS ONE 14(4): e0215610.
• Witzel, Christoph, Olkkonen, Maria & Gegenfurtner, Karl R. (2018). A Bayesian Model of the Memory Colour Effect. i-Perception 9(3): 204166951877171.
• Mattar, Marcelo G., Olkkonen, Maria, Epstein, Russell A. & Aguirre, Geoffrey K. (2018). Adaptation decorrelates shape representations. Nature Communications 9: 3812.
• Olkkonen, Maria, Aguirre, Geoffrey K. & Epstein, Russell A. (2017). Expectation modulates repetition priming under high stimulus variability. Journal of Vision 17(6): 10.
• Witzel, C., Olkkonen, M. & Gegenfurtner, K. R. (2016). Memory colours affect colour appearance. Behavioral and brain sciences 39: e262.
• Olkkonen, M., Saarela, T. P. & Allred, S. R. (2016). Perception-memory interactions reveal a computational strategy for perceptual constancy. Journal of Vision 16(3): 38.
• Allred, S. R. & Olkkonen, M. (2015). The effect of memory and context changes on color matches to real objects. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics 77(5): 1608-1624.
• Bae, G.-Y., Olkkonen, M., Allred, S. R. & Flombaum, J. I. (2015). Why some colors appear more memorable than others: A model combining categories and particulars in color working memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 144(4): 744-763.
• Olkkonen, M. & Allred, S. R. (2014). Short-term memory affects color perception in context. PLoS ONE 9(1): e86488.
• Bae, G.-Y., Olkkonen, M., Allred, S. R., Wilson, C. & Flombaum, J. I. (2014). Stimulus-specific variability in color working memory with delayed estimation. Journal of Vision 14(4): 7.
• Olkkonen, M., McCarthy, P. & Allred, S. R. (2014). The central tendency bias in color perception: Effects of internal and external noise. Journal of Vision 14(11): 5.
• Allred, S. R. & Olkkonen, M. (2013). The effect of background and illumination on color identification of real, 3D objects. Frontiers in Psychology 4: 821.
• Olkkonen, M & Brainard D H (2011). Joint effects of illumination geometry and object shape in the perception of surface reflectance. i-Perception 2(9): 1014-1034.
• Olkkonen, M, Witzel, C, Hansen, T & Gegenfurtner K R (2010). Categorical color constancy for real surfaces. Journal of Vision 10(9): 9.1-9.22.
• Olkkonen, M & Brainard, D H (2010). Perceived glossiness and lightness under real-world illumination. Journal of Vision 10(9): 5.1-19.
• Olkkonen, M, Hansen T & Gegenfurtner K R (2009). Categorical color constancy for simulated surfaces. Journal of Vision 9(12): 6.1-6.18.
• Olkkonen, M, Hansen T & Gegenfurtner K R (2008). Color appearance of familiar objects: effects of object shape, texture, and illumination changes. Journal of Vision 8(5): 13.1-13.16.
• Hansen, T. Olkkonen, M., Walter, S. & Gegenfurtner, K. R. (2006). Memory modulates color appearance. Nature Neuroscience 9(11): 1367-1368.

Show all publications

Research Groups

• Cognitive Neuroscience

International Collaboration

• Dr. Linda Henriksson, Aalto University, Finland
• Dr. Toni Saarela, University of Helsinki, Finland
• Prof. Geoffrey K. Aguirre, University of Pennsylvania, PA
• Prof. Sarah Allred, Rutgers, NJ
• Prof. Yoko Mizokami, Chiba University

Selected Grants