Objetivo
Does our conscious perception of an external object arise gradually or in a discontinuous fashion? Answering this question is crucial to understand the neural mechanisms of conscious perception and its relationship with unconscious perception. This has important implications on therapeutic practice towards patients with altered consciousness. However, experimental evidence so far has been rare and contradictory. My project uses a novel approach: comparing directly the two types of dynamics, gradual or discontinuous, within the same experiment. In this experiment the quantity of perceptual information available from an image is titrated by the duration of presentation, while the possibility to become conscious of this perceptual information is affected by attentional competition with another image presented a few hundred milliseconds before (“attentional blink”). In behavioural tests I have already shown that, in this new paradigm, our subjective perception follows a combination of gradual and discontinuous dynamics. Using functional imaging I will test this original prediction: an increase in the quantity of perceptual information should be associated with a gradual increase in cerebral activity, while conscious access itself should be associated with a discontinuous jump. I will combine the advantages of magnetoencephalography (MEG) and functional MRI in order to characterize when and where in the brain these dynamic events occur to give rise to conscious perception. This project will take place in a world-class Imaging Centre in Paris (MEG, EEG, fMRI), with international experts in MEG studies of consciousness and attention. I will bring a particular fMRI expertise acquired during my Marie Curie fellowship in London in one of the most renowned Imaging Centres (FIL). This reintegration fellowship should lead to a permanent position within this structure, through the French Research Organisation CNRS, while keeping collaborative projects with the FIL in London.
Convocatoria de propuestas
FP7-PEOPLE-ERG-2008
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Régimen de financiación
MC-ERG - European Re-integration Grants (ERG)Coordinador
75794 Paris
Francia