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Colourful predictions? Unraveling the resolution and neural mechanisms of colour expectation

Project description

Understanding the neural mechanisms of colour expectation

When performing everyday actions, the human visual system constantly builds expectations to predict and rapidly react to upcoming events. However, whether these expectations present a clear picture of the anticipated visual input or just a rough sketch remains completely unknown. Funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the COLOUR project will investigate where and when colour expectations are formed in the brain and if they are in full colour or comprising only a few basic hues. The project will combine electroencephalography and magnetoencephalography with anatomical brain scans and advanced computational decoding to track cortical colour expectations with high spatiotemporal precision.

Objective

Whether doing sports or driving through city traffic, our visual system constantly builds expectations to predict and quickly react to upcoming events. However, despite the great importance of expectations, their form and neural implementation remain a mystery. It is completely unknown whether expectations encode a clear picture of the anticipated visual input or just a rough sketch. This gap in knowledge is vital, since only things encoded in our expectations are expected to enter conscious awareness faster. Given the high value of colour signals to guide attention in everyday life (e.g. traffic signs), this project asks where and when in the brain colour expectations are formed and if they are in full colour or just comprised of few basic hues. To track cortical colour expectations with high spatiotemporal precision, electro- and magnetoencephalography will be combined with anatomical brain scans and cutting-edge computational decoding in a new, integrative approach. First, a decoding model will be built that reconstructs colour from brain responses. Applying this new model to brain activity of participants anticipating colours will elucidate when and where in the brain colour expectations are formed. Combined behavioural and electromagnetic measures will then determine the influence of these expectations on our perception. Finally, combining the decoding model with colour similarity levels and individual colour categorizations will clarify the resolution of colour expectations. This project will be the first to unravel the neural mechanism, influence and limits of colour expectations. Together with the decoding model as future tool, this will open new perspectives on predictive processing, perception and imagery, but will also have widespread societal implications: designing of better recognizable colour traffic signals, improving colouring schemes in school books to more effectively guide attention, and even for decoding brain responses of locked-in patients.

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HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2021-PF-01

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Coordinator

STICHTING RADBOUD UNIVERSITEIT
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 203 464,32
Address
HOUTLAAN 4
6525 XZ Nijmegen
Netherlands

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Region
Oost-Nederland Gelderland Arnhem/Nijmegen
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

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