Modality-specific and modality-general mechanisms of perceptual decision making

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Felix Blankenburg; Professor Dr. Dirk Ostwald; Professorin Dr. Steffi Pohl
• Subject Area: Human Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience
• Term: from 2019 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 409180874

Perceptual decisions can be based on information from different sensory modalities. So far, however, they have mostly been studied one modality at a time and using very different stimulus material and tasks. This project thus studies which neural mechanisms of perceptual decision making are specific to individual modalities and which mechanisms are shared across them. In a novel, virtual reality-based setting, this project will directly compare the neural mechanisms of both visual and tactile perceptual decisions. To assess the neural mechanisms, the project will use both model-based fMRI and EEG approaches based on hierarchical drift diffusion models and multivariate choice probability methods.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants