Heida Maria Sigurdardottir

Heida Maria Sigurdardottir is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Iceland. She is a cognitive neuroscientist with expertise in visual cognition, particularly face and object perception.35

Education and Career

Dr. Sigurdardottir received her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Brown University in 2013, with a focus on cognitive and systems neuroscience. Her doctoral thesis was titled "Objects in Space." She completed her B.A. in Psychology from the University of Iceland in 2005.12

Currently, she serves as a Professor at the University of Iceland and is the Principal Investigator of the Icelandic Vision Lab.2 Her research primarily focuses on:

• Visual cognition
• Face and object perception/recognition
• Effects of experience on high-level visual processes
• Dyslexia and its relation to visual processing

Research and Contributions

Dr. Sigurdardottir has made significant contributions to her field, with over 600 citations of her work.4 Some of her recent research topics include:

• Reading problems and their connection with visual search and attention
• The interplay of visual and semantic characteristics in object perception
• Visual imagery vividness and its relation to perceptual and memory precision
• The impact of visual working memory constraints on object recognition
• The role of visual factors in dyslexia

She has secured multiple research grants, including project grants from the Icelandic Centre for Research (Rannís) for studies on dyslexia and high-level vision.2

Teaching and Supervision

At the University of Iceland, Dr. Sigurdardottir teaches courses such as:

• Work Methods in Psychological Studies
• Perception and Cognition A

She also supervises undergraduate, master's, and doctoral students, as well as postdoctoral researchers.2