Szonya Durant

Szonya Durant is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at Royal Holloway, University of London, and Director of the Virtual Reality Lab, a cross-disciplinary initiative between Psychology, Computer Science, and Electronic Engineering. Her research focuses on visual perception, integrating neuroscience and computational modelling to investigate how populations of neurons encode spatial, temporal, and motion perception, how context alters perception, and the role of eye movements in visual processing.

• Director, Virtual Reality Lab
• Principal Investigator (PI) for multiple funded projects

Research Interests

• Neuronal coding of space, time, and motion
• Adaptation dynamics in visual perception
• Interaction of visual attributes and temporal pattern detection
• Eye movement influence on motion perception
• Attention guidance systems using cognitive assistants

Recent Research Outputs (2022–2025) include studies on motion perception algorithms, visual search dynamics, 3D art aesthetics in VR, and eye-tracking-based attention guidance systems. Her work bridges theoretical neuroscience with applied human factors research.

Scientific Awards

• College Certificate of Commendation for Team Teaching (2020)

Supervision: Mentored students include C. Soderberg (student on depth-of-field attention project) and C. Woods (student on eye-tracking privacy risks).