Michiel M. Spapé
Cognitology in Perception and Action
Introduction
Due to the modular, distributed organization of the brain, human perception relies on the integration of features coded in various cortical areas of the brain. Whilst we may feel we perceive and deal with whole objects, ideas or scenarios, neuropsychological evidence tells us a different story: remote areas of the brain process different qualities of the same object. Looking at a cup of coffee, a red cup on a green saucer, the two objects activate several brain regions, including those which process locations (top and bottom) and colours (red and green). How does the brain make sense of this and not mix up the situation into green cups and red saucers? Apparently, the brain needs to bind features of the same object into a unified representation.
My own studies deal with questions such as these. How do integration processes, across neurological areas (e.g. for colours and locations) and psychological functions (e.g. memory, attention and decision making) account for how we behave? Do we integrate only sensory features, or also the way we act upon them? How does our memory of what we have, or failed to have, achieved, affect out strategies? Currently, my favourite ways to investigate such issues include: priming tasks, executive and motor control tasks, object tracking tasks and the rapid serial visual presentation paradigm. My weapons of choice tends to be from the experimental psychology or neuroscientific arsenal: reaction times, eye-tracking, pupillometry, EEG and MEG.