Project description
Unveiling mechanisms of action-oriented perception
Neuroscientists in the past viewed our brain as an information-processing organ. Today it’s described more as an information-generating system that continuously tests competing hypotheses about the world. But since our brain lacks direct access to the outside world, predictions can be tested by generating information through action. The ERC-funded PlasticityOfMind project will boost our understanding by using an innovative combination of psychophysics, neuroimaging, virtual reality and modelling in healthy individuals, patients with Huntington’s disease and expert meditators. The findings will shed light on the neural mechanisms of action oriented perception and cognition.
Objective
The past decade has witnessed the emergence of a paradigm shift in cognitive neuroscience: from the traditional view of the brain as an information-processing organ to conceptions of the brain as an information-generating system, which continuously tests competing hypotheses about the world. This perspective, which resonates with action-oriented views of perception and cognition, assigns crucial importance to action: because the brain lacks direct access to the outside world, predictions can only be tested by generating information through action. Thereby, perception is strongly shaped by predictions about the sensory outcomes of actions, and may even constitutively rest on action. Goal-directed cognitive processes are similarly understood as internal predictive activity serving information generation, but covertly and over longer time scales (they are mental actions). Yet, the vast majority of human cognitive neuroscience studies has so far left the observer in a passive state, simply correlating externally-triggered neural activity to external task manipulations, and thus leaving it unclear how self-generated (mental) actions influence how we learn to perceive the world around us at the neural level. This ERC project aims to address this gap in knowledge using an innovative combination of psychophysics, neuroimaging, virtual reality, and modelling in healthy individuals, Huntington patients, and expert meditators. The research program comprises four projects, investigating 1) how we learn to predict the sensory outcomes of our actions and how this shapes perception; 2) the hypothesis that perception constitutively rests on action; 3) the plasticity of the higher-order cognitive operations that comprise mental actions; and 4) the control that people may exert over such mental actions. This promises to provide an integrative framework for understanding the neural mechanisms and plasticity of action-oriented perception and cognition, with clear clinical implications.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
ERC-COG - Consolidator Grant
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2020-COG
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1081 HV Amsterdam
Netherlands
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