I first demonstrated using behavioral methods that every time we move our eyes, we predict the consequences of these movements. To do so, we estimated in advance where interesting objects will fall on the back of our eyes after the movement. This research led to a publication (Szinte et al., 2018, eLife) in which I took advantage of a new method to measure in human maps of the deployment of attention before a rapid eye movements.
Contrary to this first project which focused on visual mechanism, I next aimed at expanding the question of space constancy to the localization of sounds. Using only eye-tracking records, I found that oculomotor structures in charge of our eye movements represent sounds on visual maps. Moreover, these brain structures keep these sounds in an external reference frame by predicting the consequence of our movement (Szinte et al., under review in Current Biology).
The second part of the project involved the use of hemodynamical records using fMRI signals. In particular, I worked on developing a state-of-the-art methods to measure visuo-spatial information in the human visual cortex. Interestingly, while doing so, I encountered an unexpected finding, the fact that the default network (DN), a brain network with correlated activities spanning frontal, parietal and temporal cortical lobes displayed some typical and yet unknown visual organization (see attached Figure, Szinte & Knapen, submitted to Cerebral Cortex).
Finally, I applied these methods to the main project question and investigated the modulation of gaze direction on the representation of human visual field by means of hemodynamical records. I could find that both cortical, parietal and frontal nodes of the visual system only expressed a retinotopic organization which was not affected by the position of the eyes and this irrespective of whether attention was or wasn’t devoted to the stimulus used to determine the visual system organization (Szinte et al., in preparation).
