Sebastiaan Mathot

Dr. Sebastiaan Mathôt is an Associate Professor in the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Groningen, Netherlands. His primary research focuses on eye movements, pupillometry, and visual perception, with an emphasis on how pupil size influences visual processing. He leads the Experimental Psychology group, develops scientific software (e.g., OpenSesame, DataMatrix), and maintains CogSci.nl, a platform for cognitive science resources.

Mathôt's work explores the functional role of pupil dynamics, including light responses, near responses, and psychosensory modulation. Key areas include pupil-size effects on retinal responses, time perception, and neural activity. He has published extensively in journals like NeuroImage, Psychophysiology, and Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, with over 150 peer-reviewed articles and preprints.

He has received grants such as the VIDI and VENI awards for research on pupil-sensation feedback loops and cognitive pupillometry methods. His software contributions, including OSWeb and MindProbe, support online experimentation and open science practices. Collaborations span cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and applied research on topics like visual working memory and attention-guided perception.

Awards include the Dutch Psychonomic Society’s Best PhD Thesis (2013) and a finalist in the Best Illusion of the Year Contest (2014). His lab actively engages in interdisciplinary projects, integrating EEG, eye-tracking, and computational modeling to understand perception and cognition.