Former Neuroscience Program and MBI graduate student Chia-Hsuan Wang from the Knierim Lab recently published her dissertation research in Current Biology. The study demonstrated that the boundaries between surface textures on an open field can create distortions in the brain’s “cognitive map.” These distortions may be related to how the brain segments space into separate compartments (e.g., how a border between floor tile and carpet segments space psychologically into a kitchen vs. a dining room). They may also explain perceptual illusions that occur when people estimate distances across such boundaries.

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(20)30163-9

See “Dispatch” describing these results in the journal:

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(20)30292-X