Christopher Thorstenson
Assistant Professor
Christopher Thorstenson
Assistant Professor
Bio
Chris studies how we perceive and evaluate color appearance of human faces.
His research primarily investigates how the visual system perceives even subtle variations in face and skin color (e.g., visual detection, discrimination), and how facial color can influence judgments about the person (e.g., preference, emotion)
This research focuses not only on real human faces, but also includes artificial social agents (e.g., social robots, avatars, emojis), as well as perceiving faces in virtual- and augmented- reality environments.
Chris is also broadly interested in color-emotion associations, measurement of skin color, and appearance of skin tones in art.
Currently Teaching
In the News
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June 11, 2022
Why showing stress can make people more likeable
The BBC features research by Christopher Thorstenson, assistant professor in the color science program.
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November 11, 2024
Color science students win best poster awards at AR/VR Symposium
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November 11, 2024
Herbeck wins Best Student Paper at Color and Imaging Conference