How Visuospatial Memory Shapes Perception of Real-World Environments

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Project Abstract One long-standing puzzle in neuroscience is how scene perception and spatial memory systems – which are topographically distinct in the brain – interface to enable memory-guided visual behavior. In the context of scene perception, two crucial knowledge gaps remain. First, how does visuospatial memory of the local environment facilitate ongoing scene perception? Second, what are the neural underpinnings of memory-guided scene perception? The current project will tackle these questions by combining head-mounted virtual reality (VR), eye-tracking, and fine-grained within-subject fMRI. We will teach participants immersive, real-world environments and test how memory-guided scene processing is implemented in the brain and behavior. In doing so, we will advance a new mechanistic hypothesis as to the neural basis of memory-based predictive coding for scene processing. Together, this project will produce fundamental knowledge about how stored knowledge about the world influences ongoing perception during naturalistic visual experience, and how the brain accomplishes memory-guided visual behaviors like navigation. The resulting knowledge promises impact for our numerous health conditions such as Alzheimer’s, dementia, macular degeneration, cortical visual impairments, and healthy aging, in which both the visual behaviors and brain regions investigated here are implicated.