Research in Dr. Conway's lab aims to understand the normal brain processes by which physical signals that impinge on the sensory apparatus (eyes, ears) are transformed into perceptions, thoughts, and actions. Work in the lab has been especially invested in developing color as a model system. The advantage of color is that its physical basis (wavelength) is well characterized, yet these chromatic signals support not only low-level visual abilities such as color matching but also high-level cognitive processes such as categorization, memory, social cognition, and emotion. This variety of phenomena provides a rich opportunity for investigating the full scope of perceptual and cognitive computations that make human vision such an important source of information about the world. The lab uses many research techniques, including psychophysics and non-invasive brain imaging (MRI, MEG) in humans, along with fMRI-guided microelectrode recording, fMRI-guided pharmacological blockade, microstimulation, tract-tracing, and computational modeling in non-human primates (NHPs). Work in the lab is organized around three broad approaches: First, the use of MRI in humans and NHPs to investigate homologies of brain anatomy and function between these species, to support the applicability of neurophysiology from NHPs to the human case, and to test hypotheses about the fundamental organizational plan of the cerebral cortex in the primate; second, the use of microelectrode recording in NHPs to show on a mechanistic level how populations of neurons drive behaviors such as perceptual decisions and categorization; And third, comparative psychophysical studies in humans and NHPs, as part of a program of neuroethology to understand the relative computational goals of perception/cognition in different primate species. In addition to studies of vision, the lab conducts experiments using auditory and combined audio-visual stimuli, to understand common principles of sensory-cognitive information processing, and to determine how signals across the senses are integrated into a coherent experience.

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