CHBH Seminar Series: Prof Stefan Van der Stigchel

This seminar is free to attend and is open to all, both within and outside the University. Feel free to come along to the location above if you wish to attend in person, if you wish to attend on Zoom, please register your interest to attend online using the link above.

We are delighted to announce that the Centre for Human Brain Health (CHBH) will welcome Professor Stefan Van der Stigchel, Professor of Cognitive Psychology at the Department of Experimental Psychology, Utrecht University and Lab Lead at the AttentionLab, to present a hybrid CHBH Seminar, taking place on Tuesday, 1st November, 13:00-14:00. Attendance is possible either in person in Gisbert Kapp room N224, or by registering to attend on Zoom online via the link above. 

The hour after the seminar, 14:00-15:00, is reserved for optional informal discussion with the speaker and host, all are welcome to attend.

To arrange a 1:1 meeting with Prof Van der Stigchel, please contact us if you wish to meet him in person, or state your interest when registering to attend online for the seminar via the link above.

Prof Van der Stigchel's Lab Twitter handle is @AttentionLabUU and he can be contacted on s.vanderstigchel@uu.nl. 

CHBH Event Host
Dr Wieske Van Zoest / Dr Clayton Hickey

Evidence for the world as an external memory: A trade-off between internal and external visual memory storage

Abstract

While interacting with the external world, the brain can only represent very little of this world in visual working memory (VWM). VWM is therefore generally referred to as a limited-capacity system. This limitation is not a problem in daily life, however, because the external world typically remains available and can be accessed relatively easily. Whereas current research on VWM has a strong focus on its maximum capacity, this capacity may hardly be used as observers prefer to minimize internal storage due to the effortful nature of VWM storage. The current dominant theory of VWM does not explain how the brain balances between internal storage and external sampling, as this theory exclusively relates to situations in which the remembered information is no longer physically present. Here, I will discuss research motivated by the idea that WM should be studied in interaction with the world that is still within view. I propose that WM maintains a perceptual homeostasis by dynamically trading the costs of accurate internal storage against external sampling of the external visual world.

Speaker Biography

Stefan van der Stigchel is professor of Cognitive Psychology at Utrecht University. He heads the AttentionLab research group that examines how attention and visual awareness work together to create our perception of the world. Stefan's research has been supported in the past by NWO Veni and Vidi grants. He is currently researching visual working memory, supported by an ERC Consolidator grant. Stefan is also an author of the popular science books 'How attention works' and 'Concentration', published internationally by MIT Press.

This seminar is free to attend and is open to all, both within and outside the University. Feel free to come along to the location above if you wish to attend in person, if you wish to attend on Zoom, please register your interest to attend online using the link above.