Prediction & Attention

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The Prediction & Attention research group is based at the Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging at the Donders Institute for Brain Cognition and Behavior. The group is headed by Dr. Floris de Lange.

Perception and decision-making are not automatic processes, but strongly shaped by internal brain states, which incorporate our goals, attention, expectations, and knowledge about the world. The mechanisms by which these “top-down factors” affect perception, cognition, and behavior are still largely unknown. Where do the neuronal top-down signals come from? How do they change communication between sensory and decision-related brain regions? And how do these factors affect our perception and decision-making? These questions are the focus of investigation of our group. We use a combination of behavioural and neuroimaging methods (MEG, fMRI, TMS) in healthy volunteers to examine how percepts and decisions are shaped by what we expect (predict) and deem relevant (selective attention).

For more information, have a look at the Research or check out the Publications.

Recent publications

de Lange FP, van Gaal S, Lamme VA, Dehaene S (2011). How awareness changes the relative weights of evidence during human decision making. PLoS Biology, 9(11): e1001203. pdf
Kok P, Rahnev D, Jehee J, Lau HC, de Lange FP (2011). Attention reverses the effect of prediction in silencing sensory signals. Cerebral Cortex, in press. pdf
Rahnev D, Maniscalco B, Graves T, Huang E, de Lange FP, Lau HC (2011). Attention Induces Conservative Subjective Biases in Visual Perception. Nature Neuroscience, 14, 1513-5. pdf
Rahnev D, Lau HC, de Lange FP. (2011). Prior expectation modulates the interaction between sensory and prefrontal regions in the human brain. Journal of Neuroscience, 31,10741-8. pdf
Todorovic A, van Ede F, Maris E, de Lange FP (2011). Prior expectation mediates neural adaptation to repeated sounds in the auditory cortex: an MEG study. Journal of Neuroscience 31, 9118-23. pdf

In the media

Dec 2011: Article in Scientific American (Mind) about the study on subliminal ensemble priming by van Opstal, de Lange & Dehaene (in english)

Nov 2011: Synopsis in PLoS Biology about the study on how awareness changes decision-making by de Lange et al (in english)

Jul 2011: Interview in de Volkskrant about how expectations change our perception (in dutch)

Mar 2008: Interview in de Volkskrant about mental imagery and self-monitoring in psychopathology (in dutch)

2008: Noorderlicht covered the finding of prefrontal grey matter increase following cognitive behavioural therapy. You can also listen to the radio interview on the site.

Announcements

Workshop at HBM2012 in Beijing on "Attention and expectation in human visual perception" The symposium proposal on "Attention and expectation in human visual perception" has been accepted as a morning workshop at Human Brain Mapping (HBM) 2012 in Beijing, China.The symposium will ...
Posted Jan 11, 2012 7:57 AM by Floris de Lange
Commentary article in PLoS Biology Janelle Weaver has written an accessible synopsis about our PLoS Biology paper on how awareness biases decision-making. See http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio ...
Posted Nov 28, 2011 1:37 AM by Floris de Lange
Shanti Ganesh wins "Creative mind prize 2011" Shanti Ganesh has won the "Creative mind prize 2011" with her research proposal on the cognitive neuroscience of creativity.For more information: http://www.ru.nl/actueel/nieuws-0/@828694 ...
Posted Nov 3, 2011 12:04 AM by Floris de Lange
Paper accepted in Cerebral Cortex Kok P, Rahnev D, Jehee J, Lau HC, de Lange FP. Attention reverses the effect of prediction in silencing sensory signals. Cerebral Cortex, in press.
Posted Oct 9, 2011 3:29 AM by Floris de Lange
Commentary article by Christof Koch Christof Koch wrote a nice commentary in the Scientific American on the recently published paper by van Opstal, de Lange & Dehaene (2011).
Posted Oct 3, 2011 9:35 AM by Floris de Lange

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