Dr. Sereno studies fundamental cognitive and neural processes underpinning the visual perception of objects in space. Her research has focused on the representation of shape and space in the primate brain, in particular, the representation of static and dynamic 3D shape, the interpretation of nature's patterns (fractals), and spatial processing and navigation. These domains bridge 2D-to-3D representations – perceiving 3D shapes from 2D retinal images, drawing 2D representations given 3D percepts, or using 2D external or internal maps to navigate 3D environments. This research is multimodal, synthesizing findings across studies employing behavioral, neuroimaging, image processing, neural modeling, and population decoding approaches.

Dr. Sereno is interested in accepting new graduate students for Fall 2025.

Selected Publications:

Robles, K.E., Bies, A.J., Lazarides, S., Sereno, M.E. (2022). The relationship between shape perception accuracy and drawing ability. Scientific Reports, 12, 1-12, 14900.

Juliani, A.W., Barnett, S., David, B., Sereno, M.E., Momennejad, I. (2022). Neuro-Nav: A library for neurally-plausible reinforcement learning. The 5th Multidisciplinary Conference on Reinforcement Learning and Decision Making, RLDM2022). 1-5.

Robles, K.E., Roberts, M., Viengkham, C., Smith, J.H., Rowland, C., Moslehi, S., Stadlober, S., Lesjak, A., Lesjak, M., Taylor, R.P., Spehar, B., Sereno, M.E. (2021). Aesthetics and psychological effects of fractal based design. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 1-21, 699962.

Juliani, A.W. & Sereno, M.E. (2020). A biologically-inspired dual stream world model. NeurIPS Workshop on Biological and Artificial Reinforcement Learning. 1-13.

Sereno, M.E., Robles, K.E., Kikumoto, A., Bies, A.J. (2020). The effects of 3-dimensional context on shape perception. Psychological Science, 31, 381-396.

Robles, K.E., Liaw, N.A., Taylor, R.P., Baldwin, D., Sereno, M.E. (2020). A shared fractal aesthetic across development. Nature Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 7(158), 1-8.

Roe, E., Bies, A.J., Montgomery, R.D., Watterson, W.J., Boydston, C.R., Sereno, M.E., Taylor, R.P. (2020). Fractal solar panels: Optimizing aesthetic and electrical performance. PLOS ONE, 15(3), 1-13, e0229945.

Sereno, A.B., Lehky, S.R., & Sereno, M.E. (2020). Representation of shape, space, and attention in monkey cortex. Cortex, 122, 40-60.

Abboushi, B., Elzeyadi, I., Taylor, R.P., & Sereno, M.E. (2019). Fractals in Architecture: The visual interest, preference, and mood response to projected fractal light patterns in interior spaces. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 61, 57-70

Van Dusen, B., Scannell, B.C., Sereno, M.E., Spehar, B., Taylor, R.P. (2019). The Sinai light show: Using science to tune fractal aesthetics. In: Wuppuluri, S., Wu, D. (Eds.) On Art and Science: Tango of an Eternally Inseparable Duo. 1-24. The Frontiers Collection. Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Taylor, R.P., Juliani, A.W., Bies, A.J., Boydston, C.R., Spehar, B., & Sereno, M.E. (2018). The implications of fractal fluency for biophilic architecture. Journal of BioUrbanism, 6, 23-40.

Bies, A.J., Boydston, C.R., Taylor, R.P., & Sereno, M.E. (2016). Relationship between fractal dimension and spectral decay rate in computer-generated fractals. Symmetry, 8:66.

Juliani, A.W., Bies, A.J., Boydston, C.R., Taylor, R.P., & Sereno, M.E. (2016). Navigation performance in virtual environments varies as a function of fractal dimension. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 47:155-165.

Bies, A.J., Blanc-Goldhammer, D.R., Boydston, C.R., Taylor, R.P., & Sereno, M.E. (2016). Aesthetic responses to exact fractals driven by physical complexity. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 10:210.

Lehky, S.R., Sereno, M.E., & Sereno, A.B. (2016). Characteristics of eye-position gain field populations determine geometry of visual space. Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, 9:72.

Sereno, A.B., Sereno, M.E., Lehky, S.R. (2014). Recovering stimulus locations using populations of eye-position modulated neurons in dorsal and ventral visual streams of nonhuman primates. Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, 8:28.

Lehky, S.R., Sereno, M.E., & Sereno, A.B. (2013). Population coding and the labeling problem: extrinsic versus intrinsic representations. Neural Computation, 25, 2235-2264.

Sereno, S.C., O'Donnell, P.J., & Sereno, M.E. Size matters: Bigger is faster. (2009). The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62, 1115-1122.

Peng, X., Sereno, M.E., Silva, A.K., Lehky, S.R., & Sereno, A.B. (2008). Shape selectivity in primate frontal eye field. Journal of Neurophysiology, 100, 796-814.

Sereno, M.E., Trinath, T., Augath, M., & Logothetis, N.K. (2002). Three-dimensional shape representation in monkey cortex. Neuron, 33, 635-652.

Sereno, M.E., & Sereno, M.I. (1999). 2-D center-surround effects on 3-D structure-from-motion. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 25, 1834-1854.

Sereno, M.E. (1993). Neural Computation of Pattern Motion: Modeling Stages of Motion Analysis in the Primate Visual Cortex. Cambridge: MIT Press/Bradford Books. (187 pp.)

Zhang, K., Sereno, M.I., & Sereno, M.E. (1993). Emergence of position-independent detections of sense of rotation or dilation with Hebbian Learning: An analysis. Neural Computation, 5, 597-612.

Sereno, M.I., & Sereno, M.E. (1991). Learning to see rotation and dilation with a Hebb rule. In Lippmann, R.P., Moody, J., Touretzky, D.S. (eds.) Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 3. San Mateo, CA: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 320-326.

Sereno, M.E. (1987). Implementing stages of motion analysis in neural networks. In Proceedings of the Ninth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 405-416.