Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE120100898
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$375,000.00
Summary
The brain that adapts itself - flexible processing in an ever-changing world. To cope with the changing world around us, our brains must constantly adapt themselves, reconfiguring an incredibly complex system to produce flexible behaviour. This project will develop innovative brain imaging techniques and use them to examine this process in vision, fundamental for understanding the human brain, and advancing neuroscience in Australia.
Making sense of ambiguity: brain system interactions and visual uncertainty. This project aims to identify and characterise the interactions between brain regions underlying a fundamental process in visual perception: interpreting sensory input that is unclear or ambiguous. It will use two complementary neuroimaging techniques and cutting-edge analysis methods. The intended outcomes include new insights into a fundamental but poorly characterised aspect of brain function: how brain regions inter ....Making sense of ambiguity: brain system interactions and visual uncertainty. This project aims to identify and characterise the interactions between brain regions underlying a fundamental process in visual perception: interpreting sensory input that is unclear or ambiguous. It will use two complementary neuroimaging techniques and cutting-edge analysis methods. The intended outcomes include new insights into a fundamental but poorly characterised aspect of brain function: how brain regions interact, and advanced analysis methods with wide application. Expected benefits include important advances in knowledge that lay foundations for future study of neural disorders, international collaboration, and new methods placing Australia at the forefront of the international effort to understand the human brain. Read moreRead less
Making sense of the world: how does the brain process task-relevant information? Contributing to a global effort to understand the human brain, this project will develop and use innovative brain imaging techniques to ask how our brains make sense of the world. This project establishes collaboration with a world renowned research centre in Cambridge, UK, and will be fundamental for advancing basic science in Australia.
Using shape change for object perception: human and artificial vision. This project aims to examine the steps taken by the visual system to code the shape of objects, including those that change shape over time. The project seeks to employ experiments assessing human vision and machine learning techniques to examine these codes and, in particular, focus on the advantages of a system that exaggerates shape change over time. Expected outcomes include an improved shape code based on superior human ....Using shape change for object perception: human and artificial vision. This project aims to examine the steps taken by the visual system to code the shape of objects, including those that change shape over time. The project seeks to employ experiments assessing human vision and machine learning techniques to examine these codes and, in particular, focus on the advantages of a system that exaggerates shape change over time. Expected outcomes include an improved shape code based on superior human performance that can have many applications in automated visual systems. This project can directly benefit the animation industries where the creation of realistic movement of humans and animals remains a computationally intensive challenge.Read moreRead less
Testing a relational account for visual working memory. This project aims to test whether Becker's relational theory of attention can explain visual working memory performance, the ability to remember visual items over brief time periods. According to the relational account, elementary features such as colours are encoded relative to other features in the context (e.g. as redder, larger, darker). Our ability to detect a change in a feature would depend on the features in the context, and on whet ....Testing a relational account for visual working memory. This project aims to test whether Becker's relational theory of attention can explain visual working memory performance, the ability to remember visual items over brief time periods. According to the relational account, elementary features such as colours are encoded relative to other features in the context (e.g. as redder, larger, darker). Our ability to detect a change in a feature would depend on the features in the context, and on whether the context remains constant. This project expects to provide insights into how features are represented in memory, and to predict which items will be remembered. This could help to develop interactions and therapies for the ageing population and in clinical disorders.Read moreRead less
Can the relational account of attention explain search in natural environments and inattentional blindness? This project aims to further extend the relational theory of attention to account for visual search and inattentional blindness in natural environments. In addition, the neuronal correlates for inattentional blindness will be investigated with the use of Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). The research has fundamental implications for theories of visual attention and awareness, a ....Can the relational account of attention explain search in natural environments and inattentional blindness? This project aims to further extend the relational theory of attention to account for visual search and inattentional blindness in natural environments. In addition, the neuronal correlates for inattentional blindness will be investigated with the use of Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). The research has fundamental implications for theories of visual attention and awareness, and will advance understandings of how and why we frequently fail to notice potentially important objects and events in the environment.Read moreRead less
How people learn inhibitory associations. This project aims to combine insights from associative and cognitive theories to investigate how people acquire, represent and generalise knowledge about inhibitory, or preventative, relationships. The project intends to use novel methods to assess the inhibitory causal structures inferred by individual participants, expected to include direct outcome prevention, modulation of a causal relationship, and configural learning. This project should expand our ....How people learn inhibitory associations. This project aims to combine insights from associative and cognitive theories to investigate how people acquire, represent and generalise knowledge about inhibitory, or preventative, relationships. The project intends to use novel methods to assess the inhibitory causal structures inferred by individual participants, expected to include direct outcome prevention, modulation of a causal relationship, and configural learning. This project should expand our understanding of the mechanisms of human associative learning. The project should benefit and inform clinical interventions based on identifying and normalising maladaptive learned associations.Read moreRead less
Faster, cheaper, safer: how to accelerate rail driver training and avert the looming skills shortage. The Australian rail industry is growing rapidly and needs to double the number of drivers trained in order to meet demand. This project will bring together Australia's leading hi-tech simulator company and Australia's leading rail human factors research team to 'reinvent' driver training technologies and techniques for the 21st century.