Cognitive neuroscience

We aim to understand how the human brain works by following electrophysiological and hemodynamic changes by means of noninvasive imaging: magnetoencephalography (MEG) to track brain dynamics at millisecond scale and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to spot the active brain areas with millimeter precision. This systems-neuroscience approach suits well for merging information from many fields of science interested in human behavior: neuroscience, psychology, social psychology, neurology, and psychiatry. We translate basic-research results to clinics via CliniMEG.

The BML uses movies, narratives, and VR to study human higher cognitive functions especially social cognition and emotions in ecologically valid stimulus and task conditions during neuroimaging. The laboratory develops new methods, in particular data-analysis approaches, hand-in-hand with the empirical work, and has been involved in translational research via collaborations.

I am a philosopher working toward a scientific metaphysics, in other words a general world view which reflects our best (natural) sciences. Physics is particularly important in this endeavour, and within physics the attempts to provide ontological accounts. Among these I find the efforts of David Bohm most promising, and have studied these, e.g. in my 2007 book Mind, Matter and the Implicate Order (Springer).

HiPerCog lab studies, and aims to develop a theory of, High Performance Cognition (HPC), which arises when a highly demanding dynamic cognitive task is performed with high skill. HPC is hypothesized to be due to tuning of attention processes. It generates subjective experience of Flow, and is a component of learning to perform to expert/optimal level. A key tenet of HPC is that it arises through learning of a demanding dynamic task. We work on projects studying skill learning in a range of tasks, including games, programming, and neurofeedback.