In this project led by Cyriel Pennartz, a team of leading consciousness researchers will conduct a series of pilot experiments investigating perception.

Experiment 1 examines the role of inactive neurons and background activity in spatial perception. Specifically, it tests how optogenetic activation of neurons with little to no background activity affects the ability of mice to perform a visuospatial perception task.

Experiment 2 investigates whether altered connectivity in patients or, in healthy humans warps spatial experiences or the perception of space.

Experiment 3 tests the effect of active inference on changes in conscious perception. In this experiment, the team will contrast active sampling of the visual environment by eye movements to passive sampling, while keeping stimulus saliency and endogenous attention constant. Here, various psychophysical paradigms will be piloted, including motion-induced blindness and Troxler fading.