Project C2. Space and action: the different meanings and uses of 'active perception'

神经性精神障碍是一种神秘的神经心理障碍：难以理解，难以治疗。在这个项目中，我们希望使用主动感知的概念来进一步了解这种疾病，并开发一种新的治疗方法。单侧忽视的患者通常会忽略来自左侧的信息。例如，当复制一张房子的照片时，他们会复制右边的所有细节，而不是左边的。特别令人困惑的是，忽视患者没有注意到他们的图片和感知是不完整的。我们认为，预测编码或感知的贝叶斯帐户可以解释这个令人困惑的观察。此外，贝叶斯的解释也解释了为什么棱镜适应疗法可以改善忽视的某些症状，但对其他症状却没有改善。为了解释这最后一个发现，我们假设知觉可能涉及对不一致的感觉数据的抑制。我们建议使用双目竞争来检测抑制的迹象，从而测试来自贝叶斯忽视帐户的预测。我们项目的下半部分旨在利用主动感知的一个特定方面来开发一种新的治疗忽视患者的方法。当眼球运动到一个方向被阻止时，对视觉空间相应部分的注意力分配就被取消了。在忽视中，注意力集中在右侧，左侧被忽略。通过防止眼球向右运动，我们可以纠正这种不平衡，从而减少忽视症状。我们希望首先在健康参与者中开发这种方法，将其应用于忽视患者，并将其与经典治疗方法的疗效进行比较。

Neglect is a mysterious neuropsychological disorder: difficult to understand and difficult to treat. In this project we want to use the concept of active perception to further our understanding of this disorder and to develop a new treatment approach. Patients with unilateral neglect typically ignore information from their left side. For example when copying a picture of a house they will copy all the details on the right but not those from the left. It is particularly puzzling that neglect patients fail to notice that their pictures and percepts are incomplete. We suggest that predictive coding or the Bayesian account of perception can explain this puzzling observation. Moreover, the Bayesian account also offers an explanation for why prismatic-adaptation therapy improves some symptoms in neglect but not others. To explain this last finding we assume that perception can involve the suppression of incongruent sensory data. We propose to use binocular rivalry to detect signs of suppression and, thereby, to test the predictions derived from the Bayesian account of neglect. The second half of our project aims to exploit one specific aspect of active perception to develop a new treatment for neglect patients. When eye-movements into one direction are prevented, attentional allocation to the corresponding part of visual space is abolished. In neglect, attention is focused onto the right side and the left side is ignored. By preventing eye-movements to the right side we can redress this imbalance and thereby reduce neglect symptoms. We want to develop this approach first in healthy participants, apply it to neglect patients and compare it in its efficacy with a classical treatment approach.