Brain & Behaviour Lab

<body topmargin="0" leftmargin="0" stylesrc="about_us.htm" background="/P:/Documenten%20ea/bbk%20website/images/bckgrnd.jpg" bgcolor="#FFFFE3"> <table border="0"> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2"> <div align="left"> <table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tr> <td valign="top" align="left"><a href="http://www.bbk.ac.uk" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="images/bbk_small.gif" width="165" height="51"></a></td> <td valign="top" align="left" background="images/brains2.jpg" width="600"> <h1 align="right" style="line-height: 100%; margin: 0">Brain & Behaviour Lab</h1> <p align="right" style="line-height: 100%; margin: 0">School of Psychology</p> <p align="right" style="line-height: 100%; margin: 0">Birkbeck College</p> <p align="right" style="line-height: 100%; margin: 0">Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HX <p></td> </tr> </table> </div> </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="50%"></td> <td> <table border="0" width="65%"> <tr> <td> <p style="margin-left: 20"><font size="2" face="Arial">The Brain and Behaviour Lab studies perception, attention, and the control of action in experiments that measure both overt performance (reaction times, error rates, signal detection quality) as well as brain responses generated by external and internal cognitive processes. We measure event-related brain potentials (ERPs) as an electrophysiological indicator of ongoing sensory, perceptual, memory-related and motor brain processes. Our primary aim is to uncover cognitive mechanisms responsible for the normal performance in healthy adult humans, but we also study the disruption of such mechanism caused by brain damage.</font></p> <p style="margin-left: 20"><font size="2" face="Arial">Our main areas of research are:</font></p> <ul> <li> <p style="margin-left: 0"><b><font size="2" face="Arial">Mechanisms of selective attention</font></b></li> </ul> <p style="margin-left: 25"><font size="2" face="Arial">How does attending to a particular stimulus, a specific location, or a distinct stimulus attribute (like colour, size, or orientation) influence the processing of stimuli? Does attention enhance sensory-perceptual processes, or does it influence later stages of information processing (semantic processing, the selection of responses)? Which processes are affected in patients with attentional disorders resulting from brain damage?</font></p> <ul> <li><b><font size="2" face="Arial">Intermodal attention and crossmodal links in selective attention</font></b></li> </ul> <p style="margin-left: 25"><font size="2" face="Arial">Which mechanisms make it possible to selectively attend to one modality (say, vision) and to ignore another modality (like audition)? Do attentional processes within one stimulus modality (like directing attention to a specific location within vision) have any influence on information processing within other modalities?</font></p> <ul> <li><b><font size="2" face="Arial">Stimulus-response compatibility and perceptuo-motor links</font></b></li> </ul> <p style="margin-left: 25"><font size="2" face="Arial">Are there ‘direct links’ between perceptual processes and response-related stages that will activate specific responses ‘automatically’? Can such links even be activated by stimuli that are not consciously perceived? Can automatically activated response tendencies be inhibited before they result in inappropriate behaviour? How are motor activation and inhibition affected in neurological patients suffering from disorders in motor control?</font></p> <ul> <li><b><font size="2" face="Arial">Face perception</font></b></li> </ul> <font SIZE="2"> <p style="margin-left: 25; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><font face="Arial">Are there specialised brain processes responsible for the perception and recognition of faces? Which processing stages are involved in face recognition? Can these stages be influenced by attention? How are they disrupted in brain-damaged patients? Is face perception a hard-wired 'module', or does it change during normal development and as a function of expertise? We investigate these questions in close cooperation with the <a href="http://www.cbcd.bbk.ac.uk" target="_top">Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development</a>.</font></p> </font> <ul> <li> <p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="2"><b>Somatosensory processing and attentional selectivity in touch</b></font></li> </ul> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 25; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><font face="Arial" size="2"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: Times New Roman; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">Can tactile-spatial attention be flexibly adjusted according to task demands? Which are the control processes involved in shifts of tactile attention? How is tactile attention distributed across the body surface and what is the size of the attentional focus? Are there externally and/or anatomically defined spatial coordinates involved in shifts of tactile attention? Does attention to non-spatial attributes (e.g. intensity) interact with spatial attention in touch, or are these independent processes? Are there any links between tactile attention and response preparation?</span></font></p> <p style="margin-left: 25"> </p> <p style="margin-left: 25"> </p> <p style="margin-left: 25"> </p> <font FACE="CG Times,Times New Roman"> <p style="margin-left: 25"> </p> <p align="right"> </p> <p align="right"> </p> <p align="right"> </p> <p align="center"><font face="Arial" size="1"><a href="default.htm" target="_top">home</a> | <a href="about_us.htm">about us</a> | <a href="members_of_staff.htm">members of staff</a> | <a href="publications.htm">publications</a> |  <a href="http://www.cbcd.bbk.ac.uk" target="_top">Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development</a>  | <a href="http://www.bbk.ac.uk" target="_top">homepage Birkbeck</a> | <a href="http://www.bbk.ac.uk/psyc" target="_top">homepage Psychology</a></font></p> <p align="right"> </p> <p align="right"> </p> <p align="right"><font face="Arial" size="1" color="#C0C0C0">web design by </font> <a href="Sue_Nicholas.htm"><font face="Arial" size="1" color="#C0C0C0"> Sue Nicholas</font></a> <font face="Arial" size="1" color="#C0C0C0"> and </font> <a href="Heijo_van_de_Werf.htm"><font face="Arial" size="1" color="#C0C0C0"> Heijo van de Werf</font></a> </p> <p style="margin-left: 25"> </p> </td> </tr> </table> <p></td> </tr> </table> </body>