Predicting and selecting sensory events: inference for smooth eye movements

In everyday life, we constantly need to track relevant moving targets in complex environments with our eyes such as, for instance, when we try to catch someone running in the crowd. However, this seemingly simple task demands to deal with several dynamic sources of uncertainty, related to intrinsic, target-related properties or to external, environment-related factors. In addition, one single object has to be selected at a time for accurate visual processing and ocular tracking in presence of a multitude of competing signals.

The PhD project aims at understanding the dynamic inference and decision processes underlying smooth eye movements. The PhD fellow will conduct psychophysics and oculomotor recordings on healthy subjects, as well as modeling work, in order to elucidate the effects of sensory uncertainty on the accuracy and the dynamics of visuomotor decisions. Bayesian Inference will provide a general and solid framework for behavioral models. Oculomotor decision times, such as those characterizing the dynamic switch between smooth pursuit and saccades during motion tracking, or transitions between two alternative tracking solutions, will be modeled and benchmarked against the predictions of current models of choice reaction times ("accumulation-to-threshold" models).

A potential development of the project, through the PACE European network’s collaborations and secondments (http://www.int.univ-amu.fr/-ITN-Marie-Curie-network-PACE), is to compare dynamic inference for smooth eye movements with other types of movements such as reaching, hitting or manual tracking. To obtain further information or send applications (including a full CV, a letter of motivation, 2 reference names), please contact: Anna.Montagnini@univ-amu.fr, Laurent.Perrinet@univ-amu.fr or Guillaume.Masson@univ-amu.fr. Applications are welcome immediately and until the end of May 2015.

Site: InVIBE Team (Inference in Vision and Behavior) - Institut de Neuroscience de la Timone, CNRS & Aix-Marseille Université, Marseille FRANCE – http://www.int.univ-amu.fr/

PhD Supervisors: Guillaume Masson, Anna Montagnini and Laurent Perrinet

Position details: This position is funded by the Marie Skodowska-Curie program of the H2020 European Union program, as part of the Innovative Training Network PACE (Perception and Action in Complex Environments).

Eligibility : Applicants must hold a Master Degree in Neurosciences or Psychology, or equivalent. Application from students with a background in Physics, Applied Mathematics, Computer Sciences and willing to shift towards neurosciences are encouraged. Under-graduate students from Medicine are also encouraged to apply. Applicants must not have carried out Research activities for more than 4 years after their Master degree (or equivalent) and must not already hold a PhD degree.

EU Conditions of Mobility of Early-Stage Researchers: Applicants can be of any nationality. They must comply with the rule for trans-national mobility: at the time of recruitment by the host organization, students must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc) in the country of their host organization for more than 12 months in the 3 years immediately prior to the reference date.