Project description DEENESFRITPL Exploring how internal models influence idiosyncrasies in visual experience The brain is generally regarded as a predictive system that relates sensory stimuli to internally generated models of how the world should appear. However, little is known about the characteristics of these internal models and how they differ from individual to individual. Funded by the European Research Council, the PEP project aims to systematically explore the content of internal models through methodical analysis of individuals’ drawings that depict real-life scenes. The conclusions gathered will form the basis for extensive cognitive, neural and computational research to determine how internal models relate to individual visual and linguistic experience, functional brain architecture and scene perception. Show the project objective Hide the project objective Objective In the cognitive and neural sciences, the brain is widely viewed as a predictive system. On this view, the brain conceives the world by comparing sensory inputs to internally generated models of what the world should look like. Despite this emphasis on internal models, their key properties are not well understood. We currently do not know what exactly is contained in our internal models and how these contents vary systematically across individuals. In the absence of suitable methods for assessing the contents of internal models, the predictive brain has essentially remained a black box.Here, we develop a novel approach for opening this black box. Focusing on natural vision, we will use creative drawing methods to characterize internal models. Through the careful analysis of drawings of real-world scenes, we will distill out the contents of individual people’s internal models. These insights will form the basis for a comprehensive cognitive, neural, and computational investigation of natural vision on the individual level: First, we will establish how individual differences in the contents of internal models explain the efficiency of scene vision, on the behavioral and neural levels. Second, we will harness variations in people’s drawings to determine the critical features of internal models that guide scene vision. Third, we will enrich the currently best deep learning models of vision with information about internal models to obtain computational predictions for individual scene perception. Finally, we will systematically investigate how individual differences in internal models mimic idiosyncrasies in visual and linguistic experience, functional brain architecture, and scene exploration.Our project will illuminate natural vision from a new angle – starting from a characterization of individual people’s internal models of the world. Through this change of perspective, we can make true progress in understanding what exactly is predicted in the predictive brain. Fields of science natural sciencesbiological sciencesneurobiologycognitive neurosciencenatural sciencescomputer and information sciencesartificial intelligencemachine learningdeep learningsocial sciencespsychologycognitive psychology Keywords Predictive processing internal models natural vision scene perception visual cortex drawing fMRI EEG deep neural network models representational similarity analysis Programme(s) HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme Topic(s) ERC-2022-STG - ERC STARTING GRANTS Call for proposal ERC-2022-STG See other projects for this call Funding Scheme ERC - Support for frontier research (ERC) Host institution JUSTUS-LIEBIG-UNIVERSITAET GIESSEN Net EU contribution € 1 484 625,00 Address LUDWIGSTRASSE 23 35390 Giessen Germany See on map Region Hessen Gießen Gießen, Landkreis Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Total cost € 1 484 625,00 Beneficiaries (1) Sort alphabetically Sort by Net EU contribution Expand all Collapse all JUSTUS-LIEBIG-UNIVERSITAET GIESSEN Germany Net EU contribution € 1 484 625,00 Address LUDWIGSTRASSE 23 35390 Giessen See on map Region Hessen Gießen Gießen, Landkreis Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Total cost € 1 484 625,00
