Brain and Cognition Division

At the most general level, my research program is aimed at identifying the cognitive processes and neural structures that enable and limit our visual representations of the world. For instance, I am interested in: what processes determine whether or not we are aware of a visual object or event, can report its presence, or can recall it later; what mechanisms constrain the number of items we can effectively process at the same time; how higher-level processes such as attention modulate activity in visual cortex; and, why some stimuli (e.g. natural scenes)are processed so quickly and with relatively little effort. We use a variety of approaches to address these questions, including functional magnetic resonance imaging, behavioral methods, and transcranial magnetic stimulation.

Representative Publications:

• Scalf, P.E. & Beck, D. M. (2010). Competition for representation impedes attention to multiple items. Journal of Neuroscience, 30, 161-169.
• Walther, D.B., Caddigan, E., Fei-Fei*, L., & Beck*, D.M. (2009). Natural Scene Categories Revealed in Distributed Patterns of Activity in the Human Brain. Journal of Neuroscience, 29, 10573-10581. (* indicates equal contribution)
• Torralbo, A. & Beck, D. M. (2008) Perceptual load-induced selection as a result of local competitive interactions in visual cortex. Psychological Science, 19, 1045-1050.
• Beck, D.M., Muggleton, N., Walsh, V., & Lavie, N. (2006). Right Parietal Cortex Plays a Critical Role in Change Blindness. Cerebral Cortex, 16, 712-17.
• Beck, D. M. & Kastner, S. (2005). Stimulus context modulates competition in human extrastriate cortex. Nature Neuroscience, 8, 1110-1116.

Classes Recently Taught:

• Psych 220 Images of Mind (Spring)
• Psych 593 Consciousness (Spring)
• Psych 453 Cognitive Neuroscience of Vision (Fall)