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College of Arts and Sciences
Wilson Administrative, second floor, 204
740-593-0053
Image of a human brain
Structure, Concepts, & Perception Laboratory (SCOPE Lab)
Dedicated to the Mathematical and Computational Study of Human Cognition

SCOPE Lab

SCOPE Lab Mission

Research in the Structure, Concepts, and Perception Laboratory (SCOPE Lab) focuses on how context and relational cognition impact a wide variety of psychological phenomena such as concept learning, perception, similarity assessment, judgment and decision making, behavioral economics, social categorization, and learning disorders, among others. We use mathematical and computational modeling, eye tracking technology, and behavioral experiments to achieve our research goals.

Ronaldo Vigo, Ph.D., Director

Research

Research in the Structure, Concepts, and Perception Laboratory (SCOPE Lab) focuses on how context and relational cognition impact a wide variety of psychological phenomena such as concept learning, perception, similarity assessment, judgment and decision making, behavioral economics, social categorization, and learning disorders, among others. We use mathematical and computational modeling, eye tracking technology, and behavioral experiments to achieve our research goals.

Research Areas

  •  

    Categorization Research

    Involves the classification of variables or phenomena into distinct categories.

  •  

    Psychophysics & Perception

    Quantitatively investigating the relationship between stimuli in the environment and the perceptions they evoke.

  •  

    Decision Making Research

    Investigating how individuals process, store, and analyze information to make choices.

Publications

2025

  • Vigo, R., & Ross, C. B. (2025). Pythagoras’ quest: A mathematical model and scale for aesthetic judgments. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. Advance online publication. ;
  • Vigo, R. The Need for Expanding the Formal Modeling Toolkit of the Social Sciences. Mathematics 2025, 13, 3253.
  • Doan, Charles A., and Vigo, Ronaldo. 2025. “Constructing Concepts Without Feedback: An Empirical Investigation of How Relational Information Affects Multidimensional Concept Completion Behavior in an Unsupervised Task”. PLoS One 20 (8). .
  • Vigo, Ronaldo. 2025. “Two Formal Notions of Higher-Order Invariance Detection in Humans (A Proof of the Invariance Equivalence Principle in Generalized Invariance Structure Theory and Ramifications for Related Computations)”. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 125, Article 102905. .

2023

  • Doan, Charles A., and Vigo, Ronaldo. 2023. “A Comparative Investigation of Integral-and Separable-Dimension Stimulus-Sorting Behavior”. Psychological Research 87 (6): 1917-43.
  • Vigo, Ronaldo, Charles A Doan, Jay Wimsatt, and Cody B Ross. 2023. “A Context-Sensitive Alternative to Hick’s Law of Choice Reaction Times: A Mathematical and Computational Unification of Conceptual Complexity and Choice Behavior”. Mathematics 11 (11): 2422.

2022

  • Vigo, Ronaldo, Charles A Doan, and Li Zhao. 2022. “Classification of Three-Dimensional Integral Stimuli: Accounting for a Replication and Extension of Nosofsky and Palmeri (1996) With a Dual Discrimination Invariance Model.”. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 48 (8): 1165.
  • Vigo, Ronaldo, Derek E Zeigler, and Jay Wimsatt. 2022. “Uncharted Aspects of Human Intelligence in Knowledge-Based ‘intelligent’ Systems”. Philosophies 7 (3): 46.

2021

  • Zhao, Jinling, Carla Childers, Hui Sang, Jiuqing Cheng, and Ronaldo Vigo. 2021. “The Effect of Anger on Variety Seeking for Consumers of Differing Socio-Economic Backgrounds”. Current Psychology 40: 5278-85.
  • Vigo, Ronaldo, Jay Wimsatt, Charles A Doan, and Derek E Zeigler. 2021. “Raising the Bar for Theories of Categorisation and Concept Learning: The Need to Resolve Five Basic Paradigmatic Tensions”. Journal of Experimental & Theoretical Artificial Intelligence 34 (5): 845-69.

2020

  • Vigo, Ronaldo, Charles A Doan, , and Derek E Zeigler. 2020. “Context, Structure, and Informativeness Judgments: An Extensive Empirical Investigation”. Memory & Cognition 48: 1089-1111.

2019

  • Vigo, Ronaldo. 2019. “A Simple Descriptive Method & Standard for Comparing Pairs of Stacked Bar Graphs”. ArXiv Preprint ArXiv:1910.11524.

2018

  • Vigo, Ronaldo. 2018. “Musings on the Utility and Challenges of Cognitive Unification: Review of Anatomy of the Mind, Ron Sun. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (2016). 480 Pp.”. Cognitive Systems Research 51: 14-23.
  • Zeigler, Derek E, and Ronaldo Vigo. 2018. “Classification Errors and Response Times over Multiple Distributed Sessions As a Function of Category Structure”. Memory & Cognition 46: 1041-57.
  • Vigo, Ronaldo, Karina-Mikayla C Doan, Charles A Doan, and Shannon Pinegar. 2018. “On the Learning Difficulty of Visual and Auditory Modal Concepts: Evidence for a Single Processing System”. Cognitive Processing 19: 1-16.

2017

  • Vigo, Ronaldo. 2017. “Two Formal Notions of Higher-Order Invariance Detection in Humans (A Proof of the Invariance Equivalence Principle in Generalized Invariance Structure Theory and Ramifications for Related Computations).”
  • Zhao, Jinling, Nicholas Kirwen, Jedidiah Johnson, and Ronaldo Vigo. 2017. “Anger and Intertemporal Choice: The Behavioral Approach System and the Interactive Effects of Trait and State Anger”. Personality and Individual Differences 110: 60-64.

2016

  • Mourning, Chad Lee, David Chelberg, Ronaldo Vigo, and Derek Ziegler. 2016. “Disocclusion Mitigation for Point Cloud Imposters”. I3D ’16: Proceedings of the 20th ACM SIGGRAPH Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics and Games. .
  • Vigo, Ronaldo, and . 2016. “Structural Manifold Analysis: A New Method for Dimensionality Reduction Based on a Computational Theory of Human Concept Learning.”
  • Vigo, Ronaldo, and Derek E Zeigler. 2016. “On the Relationship Between Perceived Structural Complexity and Temporal Judgments”. In Mathematical Models of Perception and Cognition Volume II, 1st ed. Psychology Press.
  • Zhao, Jinling, Mary Harris, and Ronaldo Vigo. 2016. “Anxiety and Moral Judgment: The Shared Deontological Tendency of the Behavioral Inhibition System and the Unique Utilitarian Tendency of Trait Anxiety”. Personality and Individual Differences 95: 29-33.
  • Doan, Charles A, and Ronaldo Vigo. 2016. “Constructing and Deconstructing Concepts”. Experimental Psychology.

2015

  • Vigo, Ronaldo, Steven W Evans, and Julie Sarno Owens. 2015. “Categorization Behaviour in Adults, Adolescents, and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Adolescents: A Comparative Investigation”. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 68 (6): 1058-72.
  • Zhao, Jinling, Jiuqing Cheng, Mary Harris, and Ronaldo Vigo. 2015. “Anxiety and Intertemporal Decision Making: The Effect of the Behavioral Inhibition System and the Moderation Effects of Trait Anxiety on Both State Anxiety and Socioeconomic Status”. Personality and Individual Differences 87: 236-41.
  • Vigo, Ronaldo, and Charles A Doan. 2015. “The Structure of Choice”. Cognitive Systems Research 36: 1-14.

2014

  • Vancouver, Jeffrey B, Justin M Weinhardt, and Ronaldo Vigo. 2014. “Change One Can Believe In: Adding Learning to Computational Models of Self-Regulation”. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 124 (1): 56-74.
  • Vigo, Ronaldo. 2014. Mathematical Principles of Human Conceptual Behavior: The Structural Nature of Conceptual Representation and Processing. Psychology Press.

2013

  • Vigo, Ronaldo, Derek E Zeigler, and Phillip A Halsey. 2013. “Gaze and Informativeness During Category Learning: Evidence for an Inverse Relation”. Visual Cognition 21 (4): 446-76.
  • Vigo, Ronaldo, and . 2013. “Will the Most Informative Object Stand? Determining the Impact of Structural Context on Informativeness Judgements”. Journal of Cognitive Psychology 25 (3): 248-66.
  • Vigo, Ronaldo. 2013. “The GIST of Concepts”. Cognition 129 (1): 138-62.

2012

  • Vigo, Ronaldo, Yu Zhang, and Mikayla Barcus. 2012. “What Is a Good Musical Pattern? On Acoustic Structure and Goodness of Pattern”. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 132 (3\_Supplement): 1997-97.
  • Vigo, Ronaldo. 2012. “Complexity over Uncertainty in Generalized Representational Information Theory (GRIT): A Structure-Sensitive General Theory of Information”. Information 4 (1): 1-30.

2011

  • Vigo, Ronaldo. 2011. “Towards a Law of Invariance in Human Conceptual Behavior.”. Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Cognitive Science Society.
  • Vigo, Ronaldo. 2011. “Representational Information: A New General Notion and Measure of Information”. Information Sciences 181 (21): 4847-59.

2010

  • Vigo, Ronaldo. 2010. “A Dialogue on Concepts”. Think 9 (24): 109-20.

2009

  • Vigo, Ronaldo, and Colin Allen. 2009. “How to Reason Without Words: Inference As Categorization”. Cognitive Processing 10: 77-88.
  • Vigo, Ronaldo. 2009. “Categorical Invariance and Structural Complexity in Human Concept Learning”. Journal of Mathematical Psychology 53 (4): 203-21.
  • Vigo, Ronaldo. 2009. “Modal Similarity”. Journal of Experimental & Theoretical Artificial Intelligence 21 (3): 181-96.

2006

  • Vigo, Ronaldo. 2006. “A Note on the Complexity of Boolean Concepts”. Journal of Mathematical Psychology 50 (5): 501-10.
Cover of Vigo Ronaldo's book

Book

Mathematical Principles of Human Conceptual Behavior
The Structural Nature of Conceptual Representation and Processing

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Recent Conferences

Midwestern Psychological Association 2025
The Palmer House Chicago, IL

Mathematical Psychology 2025
The Ƶ State University, Columbus, Ƶ

Midwestern Cognitive Science 2023
Hosted at Ƶ, Athens, OH

University of California Irvine Presentation 2018

Midwestern Cognitive Science 2017
Miami University, Oxford, OH

  • Talk: Doan, C.A., Vigo, R., Zhao, L. An investigation on the relationship between supervised and unsupervised learning behavior.
  • Talk: Vigo, R., Doan, C.A., Doan, K.M., Zhao, L., & Carlitz, A. Some new perspectives on the integral dimensions concept learning difficulty ordering.

Mathematical Psychology 2016 (Brunswick, NJ)

Mathematical Psychology 2015 (Irvine CA)

Midwestern Psychological Association 2015

  • Talk: Vigo, R. Towards a systematical mathematical science of cognition: some challenges, candidate mathematical laws, and prospects for unification.

Midwestern Cognitive Science 2014 (Wright State University, Dayton OH)

Midwestern Cognitive Science 2013 (The Ƶ State University, Columbus OH)

Behavior 2013 (Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, England)

Acoustical Society of America 2012 (The Hyatt Regency, Kansas City MO)

  • Talk:  Vigo, R., Zhang, Y., & Barcus, K.M. What is a good musical pattern? On acoustic structure and good musical pattern.

Mathematical Psychology 2012 (The Ƶ State University, Columbus OH)

  • Talk:  Barcus, K.M., Vigo, R., & Zhang, Y. Auditory Goodness of Pattern Judgments.
  • Talk:  Doan, C., Vigo, R, & Zhao, J. On the Structural Equilibrium of Choice Sets.
  • Talk:  Vigo, R., Basawaraj, B., & Gould, M. How Informative are Concept Cues? Predicting Informativeness Judgments.
  • Poster:  Vigo, R., Zeigler, D., & Halsey, P.A. Gaze and Information Processing During Category Learning: Evidence for an Inverse Law.
  • Poster:  Vigo, R., & Basawaraj, B. Structural Manifold Analysis: A New Nonparametric Framework for Continuous and Dichotomous Multivariate Data Analysis

Midwestern Cognitive Science 2012 (Indiana University, Bloomington IN)

  • Talk:  Halsey, P.A., Zeigler, D., & Vigo, R. The Ordering Underneath the Ordering: An Investigation of the Learning Rates of Concept Structures.
  • Talk:  Vigo, R., Doan, C., & Zhao, J. The Structure of Choice.
  • Poster:  Zhang, Y., Vigo, R., & Barcus, K.M. Why Bach is Greater Than The Beatles.

CogSci 2011 (Boston, MA)

Mathematical Psychology 2010 (Portland, OR)