Welcome to the home page of the Visual Cognition Laboratory! The lab is directed by Dr. Juha Silvanto. Our work is focused on the study of visual awareness, mental imagery and working memory, and we carry out behavioural studies in conjunction with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and fMRI to understand the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying these functions. We also carry out methodological work aiming to enhance the functional resolution of TMS. Please get in touch (j.silvanto@westminster.ac.uk) if you are interested in joining us either to volunteer in our research or to carry out Msc, PhD, or post-doctoral research!
Our research is supported by an ERC Starting Grant awarded to Juha Silvanto as well as by the Academy of Finland and Emil Aaltonen Foundation.
Selected publications:
Bona S, Cattaneo Z, Silvanto J (in press). The causal role of the occipital face area (OFA) and lateral occipital (LO) cortex in symmetry perception. Journal of Neuroscience.
Silvanto J (2014). Is primary visual cortex necessary for visual awareness? Trends in Neurosciences 37(11): 618-619.
Soto D, Silvanto J (2014). Reappraising the relationship between working memory and conscious awareness. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 18(10):520-5
Saad E, Silvanto J (2013). How visual short-term memory maintenance modulates subsequent visual aftereffects. Psychological Science 24(5):803-8
Saad E, Silvanto J (2013). How visual short-term memory maintenance modulates the encoding of external input: evidence from concurrent visual adaptation and TMS. NeuroImage 72:243-51.
Soto D, Llewelyn D, Silvanto J (2012). Distinct causal mechanisms of attentional guidance by working memory and repetition priming in early visual cortex. Journal of Neuroscience 32:3447-52.
Soto D, Mäntylä T, Silvanto J (2011). Working memory without consciousness. Current Biology 21:912-13.
Silvanto J, Muggleton NG, Walsh, V. (2008). State dependency in brain stimulation studies of perception and cognition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 12: 447-454
Silvanto J, Cowey A, Walsh V. (2008). Inducing conscious perception of colour in blindsight. Current Biology 18:950-951.
Silvanto J, Cowey A, Lavie N, Walsh V. (2005). Striate cortex (V1) activity gates awareness of motion. Nature Neuroscience 8(2):143-4.
VISUAL COGNITION LABORATORY 