Major Research Goal: Understanding Perception
What does it mean for a brain to perceive? What are the processes underlying the seemingly effortless acts of seeing, feeling, hearing, tasting or smelling? In our lab we try to answer some of these questions. We focus on the senses of touch and vision: we study them in rodents and humans, construct them in synthetic (robotic) and hybrid (brain-machine) agents, and substitute one with the other.
Specific Research Aims
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Understanding active vibrissal touch in rodents
- Understanding the principles of human touch
- Understanding the principles of human vision
- Constructing synthetic (robotic) perceiving agents
- Characterizing the principles of efficient sensory substitution (SenSub) for the blind
- Constructing a theory of perception that is consistent with the tactile and visual data
