Kao-Wei Chua
New York University
CV Github Email
I received my PhD in Psychology at Vanderbilt University (PI: Isabel Gauthier), specializing in visual and perceptual expertise, especially for object and face recognition. My graduate research focused on how training and experience with different categories of faces and objects resulted in qualitative changes in visual processing, specifically in terms of how learned attention to diagnostic, useful features leads to more expert-like processing.
I am currently a postdoctoral scholar at New York University (PI: Jon Freeman) at the Social Cognitive and Neural Sciences Lab. At NYU, my research program integrates insights from statistical learning and perceptual expertise with social cognition, categorization, and social face perception. Specifically, I am interested in whether statistical learning training can impact trait impressions (e.g., trustworthiness). I am also interested in the potential impacts such training could have on real world life decisions such as hiring and legal decision making, as well as individual differences in the extent to which people make use of certain face features when making trait judgments.
See my published work below.
Publications
Chua, K-W., & Freeman, J.B. (in preparation). Individual Differences in Trait Evaluation based on Physiognomic Belief.Chua, K-W., & Freeman, J.B. (in preparation). A Short Training Reduces Trait-Related Biases From Faces for Legal Sentencing Decisions.
Chua, K-W., & Freeman, J.B. (2021). Learning To Read A Book By Its Cover: Rapid Acquisition of Facial Stereotypes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
Chua, K-W., & Freeman, J.B. (2020). Facial Stereotype Bias is Mitigated By Training. Social Psychological and Personality Science. 1-10.
Chua, K-W., & Gauthier, I. (2020). The Vanderbilt Holistic Processing Test for Novel Objects: Validation in Novice Participants. Journal of Expertise.
Chua, K-W., & Gauthier, I. (2020). Domain-specific Experience Determines Individual Differences in Holistic Processing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. 149 (1), 31-41.
Chua, K-W., Richler, J.J., & Gauthier, I. (2018). How Holistic Processing Relates to Cognitive Control and Intelligence. Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics. 80(6), 1449-1460.
Chua, K-W., Bub, D., Masson, M., Gauthier, I (2018). Grasp Actions Depend on Knowledge and Attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. 44(2), 268-279.
Chua, K-W., & Gauthier, I. (2016). Category-specific learned attentional bias to object parts. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics. 78(1), 44-51.
Chua, K-W., Richler, J. J., & Gauthier, I. (2015). Holistic processing from learned attention to parts. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. 144(4), 723-729.
Chua, K-W., Richler, J. J., & Gauthier, I. (2014). Becoming a Lunari or Taiyo Expert: Learned Attention to Parts Drives Holistic Processing of Faces. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. 1174-1182.