Dr. Linda Garami has been awarded a two-year postdoctoral fellowship under the European Union’s Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) programme to pursue research on human sensory representation. Her research will be hosted at the Vision Lab within the Department of Cognitive Science at Central European University (CEU), under the mentorship of Professor József Fiser.
Hidden Patterns in Sensory Processing
The awarded project, titled GEPREST (General Principles of Sensory Representation and Structure Testing), seeks to deepen our understanding of how humans form complex internal representations from sensory input—such as sounds and images—through unconscious pattern formation.
Previous studies have often targeted feature detection, figure-ground segregation, and categorization separately. Garami’s work brings these under one unified framework. GEPREST aims to uncover common mechanisms that govern pattern formation across different levels of complexity and modalities—specifically vision and audition—while accounting for their spatial and temporal dimensions.
A Unified Experimental and Computational Approach
Using meticulously matched visual and auditory experiments, the project will compare how humans process pure tones and simple shapes versus more intricate patterns that evolve over time or space. Behavioral sensitivity and EEG signals will be analyzed to capture the structure of these sensory representations. Interpreting the results in a Hierarchical Bayesian Model is proposed to predict individual differences and population-specific attributes, such as those with neurodevelopmental or sensory processing disorders.
Towards Broader Impact
By bridging auditory and visual processing through an integrated computational and empirical framework, Garami's work under the MSCA fellowship enhances our understanding of fundamental sensory processes, and holds relevance for further clinical research.
The project is hosted by CEU’s Vision Lab, a hub of innovative cognitive neuroscience and computational modeling. The lab fosters cutting-edge interdisciplinary research with global relevance.
Keywords: sensory perception, visual processing, auditory processing, behavioral neuroscience, probabilistic modeling, computational neuroscience, Marie Curie Fellowship, CEU Vision Lab, József Fiser, Linda Garami.