معرفی
Robert Volcic is an Associate Professor of Psychology at New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) and a Global Network Associate Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Science at NYU. He leads the Volcic Lab, which investigates multisensory perception and the integration of perception and action, particularly focusing on vision and haptics in spatial perception and grasping.
- Affiliation: NYU Abu Dhabi, Science Division
- Position: Associate Professor of Psychology
- Lab: Volcic Lab
Volcic earned his PhD from Utrecht University and a Laurea (MSc) from the University of Trieste. Prior to joining NYUAD in 2015, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Münster (Germany) and the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (Italy). He teaches key courses including Statistics for Psychology, Perception, Lab in Multisensory Perception and Action, and Capstone Project in Psychology.
His research lies at the intersection of neuroscience, cognitive systems, and sensorimotor control. Using psychophysics, movement tracking, virtual reality, and computational modeling, he explores how humans integrate visual and haptic information to guide actions like reaching and grasping. A recurring theme in his work is the application of Weber’s Law to motor behavior and the role of sensory uncertainty in multisensory integration.
His recent publications, spanning journals like Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Cognition, and Scientific Reports, reveal a strong focus on visuo-haptic integration, grasping under uncertainty, sensory recalibration, and depth perception. He has also developed the open-source MOTOM toolbox for motion tracking in Matlab, widely used in experimental neuroscience.
- Tool-sensed object information in grasping
- Perception of depth from blurred contours
- Neural signatures of motor imagery in VR
- Grasping compliance with Weber’s law
- Calibration of reach-to-grasp actions
Volcic actively mentors students and postdoctoral researchers and presents his work at leading conferences such as Vision Sciences Society (VSS) and European Conference on Visual Perception (ECVP). His lab fosters interdisciplinary research, combining psychology, engineering, and computational methods to understand human perception and action.
He has advised numerous undergraduate capstone students and research assistants, contributing significantly to student training in experimental psychology and neuroscience. His work continues to advance our understanding of how the brain integrates multiple sensory streams to guide precise motor behavior.
