Nilsu Atılgan, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology

Education

  • PhD in Cognitive and Brain Sciences, University of Minnesota, 2020
  • BA in Psychology, Bilkent University, 2015
  • Former Affiliations: Post-doctoral researcher at Carnegie Mellon University; Lead Scientist at The Readability Consortium at University of Central Florida

Research

Dr. Nilsu Atılgan’s research focuses on reading and visual information processing, emphasizing the sensory and cognitive mechanisms that shape reading performance. Her work spans low-level visual perception and attention to higher-level processes involved in encoding and interpreting text with the impact of typography and orthography. Using methods from vision science and experimental psychology, including psychophysics and eye tracking, she investigates fundamental constraints on reading performance and draws on insights from industry and interdisciplinary collaborations to inform digital readability.

Selected Publications

Atilgan, N., & Nozari, N. (2025). Statistical learning of orthotactic constraints: Evidence from typing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition.

Day, S. L., Atilgan, N., Giroux, A. E., & Sawyer, B. D. (2024). The Influence of Format Readability on Children’s Reading Speed and Comprehension. Education Sciences, 14(8), 854.

Xiong, Y. Z., Atilgan, N., Fletcher, D. C., & Legge, G. E. (2022). Digital Reading with Low Vision: Principles for Selecting Display Size. Optometry and Vision Science, 99(8), 655-661.

Atilgan, N., Xiong, Y. Z., & Legge, G. E. (2020). Reconciling print-size and display-size constraints on reading. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(48), 30276-30284.

Atilgan, N., Yu, SM., & He, S. (2020) Visual crowding effect in the parvocellular and magnocellular visual pathways. Journal of vision, 20(8), 6-6.target article with commentary and response). Stepping off the pendulum: Why only an action-based approach can transcend the nativist-empiricist debate. Cognitive Development, 28, 96-133. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2013.01.002