Rademaker Lab

The mechanisms giving rise to human perceptual experiences

Research statement

In the lab, we study how the interplay between sensation and cognition give rise to the rich experience that is human perception. Present work investigates how images briefly held in mind (in your ‘visual working memory’) can be remembered in a robust way.

For example, when you’re perceiving the surrounding world while simultaneously holding an image in mind - how can your brain best represent both the percept and the memory? And what happens if you need to pay close attention to your surroundings?

In addition to perception, working memory, and attention, we’re also interested in various states of physiological arousal, how contexts can bias perception, computational neural principles, and much more. Importantly, we think that science should be a fun and collaborative form of intellectual entertainment for anyone who wants to be a part of it!

More information on Rosanne Rademaker’s personal website

Key publications

Rademaker RL, Chunharas C & Serences JT (2019). Coexisting representations of sensory and mnemonic information in human visual cortex. Nature Neuroscience, 22: 1336–1344. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-019-0428-x