Memory & perception
How does comparing what we remember with what we see change visual working memory?
Cognitive science · Generative AI
Yuang Cao曹宇昂
Studying human cognition with AI as a research tool.
I am an undergraduate in Intelligent Medical Engineering at Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech). In Quanying Liu’s NCC Lab, I work on visual working memory, controllable visual stimuli and human evaluation of emotion descriptions.
IMAGE WHEEL CogSci 2025 · Fig. 1a
Research interests
Memory, visual stimuli, and emotion descriptions
Generative stimuli
How can we vary object features in a controlled way to ask more precise cognitive questions?
Human & model descriptions
Where do model-generated descriptions agree with human judgments, and where do they differ?
Selected publication
Visual working memory, beyond simple shapes
CogSci 2025 · Co-first author
Dimensions of Vulnerability in Visual Working Memory: An AI-Driven Approach to Perceptual Comparison
We used generated object images to examine how perceptual comparisons distort visual working memory. The study compares image-based and dimension-based similarity, finding that similarity in object dimensions can also bias memory.
Study design & abstract
The paper tests memory under a baseline condition and two perceptual comparison conditions. Image wheels vary image similarity; dimension wheels vary object-dimension similarity. Both types of comparison can induce memory distortion, with visual dimensions more susceptible than semantic dimensions in this study.
Research notes
Emo-FilM: measurement items and subsequent studies
Interactive literature map · 2026
Emo-FilM: from 50 measurements to subsequent research
An interactive reading note that connects the dataset’s measurement items and fMRI to the data selections, analyses, and findings of subsequent studies.
Explore the interactive map ↗Literature interpretation, with primary sources and explicit limits; not a new empirical study.
- Measurement
Read all 50 items and their scale endpoints.
- Selection
Highlight the data each study actually used.
- Interpretation
Separate the findings from what they cannot establish.
Research experience
Visual memory and emotion descriptions
2024–2025
Visual working memory & perceptual comparison
CogSci 2025Research in Quanying Liu’s NCC Lab, SUSTech
- Research question
- How do image similarity and object-dimension similarity affect memory distortion?
- My contribution
- Contributed to stimulus generation, behavioral study implementation, data analysis and manuscript preparation, in collaboration with the co-authors.
- Output
- Co-first-author paper at CogSci 2025.
2026–
Emotion descriptions in natural video
Exploratory researchResearch in Quanying Liu’s NCC Lab, SUSTech
- Research question
- How should open-ended, model-generated emotion words be evaluated against human descriptions and judgments?
- My contribution
- Built clip preparation and subtitle-alignment workflows; worked on model-generated word sampling and online human-validation studies.
- Current focus
- Evaluating annotation quality and human agreement. This is ongoing work, without a published claim of a validated emotion space.
Education
Southern University of Science and Technology
B.Eng. student, Intelligent Medical Engineering · 2023–2027 (expected)
Explore the research map
A compact overview of the topics above. Select a topic to read more.
Get in touch
Contact
For questions about the paper or potential research collaborations, email is the best way to reach me.