Action Projects
Visual awareness and action
Advisor: Dr. Matthew Finkbeiner (MACCS)
Co-advisors: Associate Professor Veronika Coltheart (Psychology/MACCS),
Associate Professor Sachiko Kinoshita (Psychology/MACCS)
The aim of this project is to investigate the conditions under which subliminally presented visual information is (and is not) able to engage the motor system directly. Some of the questions that this project will seek to answer are: Does the type of motor response an individual makes to a visible target modulate the visual processing of that stimulus? Is it the case that less visual information is needed to engage some motor systems (e.g. the hands) than others (e.g. the articulators)? If so, is this difference simply quantitative? Or is the engagement of some motor systems modulated by the presence/absence of visual awareness? These questions will be addressed in a masked priming paradigm using (initially) simple reaction time measures, and (later) eye movements, reaching and grasping movements, EEG and MEG.
Further Readings:
Dehaene, S., Naccache, L., Le Clec'H, G., Koechlin, E., Mueller, M., Dehaene-Lambertz, G., van de Moortele, P. F., & Le Bihan, D. (1998). Imaging unconscious semantic priming. Nature, 395(6702), 597-600.
Vorberg, D., Mattler, U., Heinecke, A., Schmidt, T. & Schwarzbach. (2003). Different time courses for visual perception and action priming. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 100, 6275-6280.