Weimin Mou, PhD

Contact

Professor, Faculty of Arts - Psychology Dept

Email: wmou@ualberta.ca
Phone: (780) 492-3601
Address: P-585 Bio Science - Psychology Wing
11355 - Saskatchewan Drive

Edmonton AB

T6G 2E9

Overview

About

I am a professor of psychology and the principal investigator at the Virtual Reality and Spatial Cognition Lab in the psychology department. I joined U of A in 2007. Prior to it, I worked as a professor at the Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences between 2003 and 2007. I got my PhD in psychology at the Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in 1999. Between 1999 and 2003, I worked as a postdoc at Vanderbilt and Michigan State University respectively. I got my BS in the department of psychology of Hangzhou University (Now Zhejiang University) in 1995.

Research

I am interested in human spatial cognition, especially how people develop their spatial memories and how they use spatial memories to navigate in the complex environment. My primary research facility is an immersive virtual environment. Please check my research on google scholar https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=hgb6IIgAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao and ResearchGate https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Weimin_Mou/research.

Teaching

I train high quality postdoc and graduate students. Most of my graduate students landed in a postdoc position at major research universities including Brown, Johns Hopkins, University of Arizona, University of Notre Dame, University of California at Davis, University of York, and Vanderbilt. I regularly teach Psych 258 (cognitive psychology) and Psych 351 (spatial cognition). I also train undergraduate researchers through independent study (Psyco 299, 396/398, 496/498) and honor thesis.

Announcements

I am looking for graduate students who are interested in human spatial cognition in virtual/real environments. My current research projects are concerned with how people determine their position and orientation in multi-scale and 3D spaces. See more about my lab Virtual Environment and Spatial Cognition LAB (VESCLAB)

Featured Publications

Cognitive maps integrating locations but missing orientations in across-boundary environments.

Zhichun Qi, Weimin Mou

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. 2025 June; 10.1037/xge0001793

Representing place locations and orientations in cognitive maps

Weimin Mou

Nature Reviews Psychology. 2025 April; 10.1038/s44159-025-00442-0

Relative cue precision and prior knowledge contribute to the preference of proximal and distal landmarks in human orientation

Yafei Qi, Weimin Mou

Cognition. 2024 March; 247 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105772

Path integration, rather than being suppressed, is used to update spatial views in familiar environments with constantly available landmarks

Yue Chen & Weimin Mou

Cognition. 2024 January;

Cue interaction between buildings and street configurations during reorientation in familiar and unfamiliar outdoor environments.

Lin Wang, Weimin Mou, Peter Dixon

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. 2018 October; 44

Piloting systems reset path integration systems during position estimation.

Lei Zhang, Weimin Mou

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. 2017 March; 43 (3):472-491

View additional publications

Links

Virtual Environment and Spatial Cognition LAB (VESCLAB)