Project description
Memory-based percepts and visual capacity
The empirical data on visual capacity suggest that people perceive and remember only a part of their surrounding environment even if they subjectively report rich visual experiences. The hypothesis is that perceptual experiences are enriched with our existing knowledge about the world. The EU-funded MemoryBasedPercepts project studies how memory-based percepts are instantiated in the brain and whether they are distinguishable from memories that do not enrich what we see. The project will combine correlational and causal neurocognitive methods to describe the spatiotemporal profile of memory-based percepts through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and magnetoencephalography (MEG). Using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) they will examine whether the activity of the visual cortex is causally necessary for memory-based percepts to appear.
Objective
"As soon as we open our eyes, we have the immediate impression of a richly detailed visual world. However, the empirical data on visual capacity suggest that people perceive and remember strikingly little of the world around them. Why people think they are highly skilled in visual perception when the empirical evidence shows that they see so little? One exciting possibility is that our perceptual experiences represent more than the physical visual input, in that they are rather constructed based on prior knowledge. Indeed, particularly when the visual information in input is limited or absent, our memories about the world allow to fill-in the visual scene, thereby generating the visual experience of objects that are subjectively perceived, but objectively not visible. These memory-based percepts may allow to render the rich visual world that people perceive, independently of capacity-limited sensory processing. In this project I ask how memory-based percepts are instantiated in the brain, and whether they are distinct from memories that do not elicit the subjective impression of seeing an object. To answer this question, I will make use of a combination of correlational and causal neurocognitive methods. First, I will characterise the spatiotemporal profile of memory-based object percepts via functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and Magnetoencephalography (MEG). Then, I will use Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) to test whether activity of visual cortex is causally necessary for memory-based percepts to arise. The present studies will elucidate whether visual cortex determines our visual experiences beyond the sensory information in input. In doing so, they speak to the broader question of whether there is a ""joint"" between perception and cognition towards a better understanding of the content of our phenomenological experiences."
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinator
6525 XZ Nijmegen
Netherlands