Vision is an active process. Humans are not passively exposed to the incoming flow of sensory data but actively seek useful information by coordinating sensory processing with motor activity. Motor behavior is a key component of visual perception, as it enables control of input sensory signals in ways that simplify perceptual computations.
Research in the Active Perception Laboratory focuses on the interaction between perception and behavior. We examine how visual functions unfold in the presence of normal and abnormal motor activity, how vision guides behavior, and how changes in visual input signals and modulations associated with behavior contribute to perception. Our research is highly interdisciplinary. It relies on the integration of theoretical and experimental approaches that bring together concepts and methods of neuroscience, psychology, engineering, physics, and computer science.
Research in the Active Perception Laboratory has led to important findings on how humans process visual information and establish spatial representations. It has identified fundamental visuomotor strategies, revealed novel contributions from eye movements to spatial vision, shed new light on the perceptual role of the extraretinal signals, and raised specific hypotheses on the influences of motor activity in the neural encoding of visual information and in visual development. Furthermore, our work has resulted in new tools for eye-tracking and real-time control of retinal stimulation and has led to robots directly controlled by models of neural pathways.