RIKEN BRAIN SCIENCE INSTITUTE (RIKEN BSI)

Faculty Detail / 研究室詳細

Justin L. Gardner, Ph.D.

- We aim to understand the cortical computations that underly human visual perception.

Human Systems Neuroscience

Unit Leader

Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of Life Sciences, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo

Vision, Perception, Decision, Attention

Justin L. Gardner

Research Area

Vision is a fabrication of our minds. Sensory information from our eyes is often ambiguous or limited, yet vision is remarkably robust and surprisingly able to correctly interpret impoverished sensory signals. What cortical computations make this possible? In the framework of Bayesian statistical decision theory; how does the cortex combine sensory evidence from the eyes with priors or expectations to form percepts? Priors may be short term and signaled by the task at hand - a particular spatial location may be more likely to contain information that is needed. Or priors may be long-term and developed over extended exposure to the natural statistics of the visual world - objects may tend to move slowly rather than quickly. While much is known about the encoding of sensory evidence, comparatively little is known about priors. Where do priors interact with sensory signals and how do they modify and augment perception? We use psychophysics to make precise behavioral measurements of how priors bias sensory decisions while concurrently measuring cortical activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging. Using knowledge of the visual system and decision theoretical models of how behavior is linked to cortical activity, we seek to understand the cortical computations that construct human vision.

Selected Publications View All

  1. 1

    Pestilli F, Carrasco M, Heeger DJ, and Gardner JL: "Attentional enhancement via selection and pooling of early sensory responses in human visual cortex.", Neuron, 72(5), 832-846 (2011)

  2. 2

    Liu T, Hospadaruk L, Zhu DC, and Gardner JL: "Feature-specific attentional priority signals in human cortex.", J Neurosci, 31(12), 4484-95 (2011)

  3. 3

    Gardner JL, Merriam EP, Movshon JA, and Heeger DJ: "Maps of visual space in human occipital cortex are retinotopic, not spatiotopic.", J Neurosci, 28(15), 3988-99 (2008)

  4. 4

    Gardner JL, Sun P, Waggoner RA, Ueno K, Tanaka K, and Cheng K: "Contrast adaptation and representation in human early visual cortex.", Neuron, 47(4), 607-20 (2005)

  5. 5

    Gardner JL, Tokiyama SN, and Lisberger SG: "A population decoding framework for motion aftereffects on smooth pursuit eye movements.", J Neurosci, 24(41), 9035-48 (2004)

  6. 6

    Gardner JL, and Lisberger SG: "Serial linkage of target selection for orienting and tracking eye movements.", Nat Neurosci, 5(9), 892-9 (2002)

Press Releases View All