Mark Postans

Much of the visual memory and perception literature assumes that these two important cognitive functions are distinguishable and that they are supported by distinct regions of the brain, with the Medial Temporal Lobe (MTL) thought to be vital for long term memory, and the Extrastriate Cortex (EC) being critical for perception. By contrast, I am currently interested in alternative models of brain function which propose that the MTL is also critical for visual perception during tasks where the ability to process complex feature-conjunctions is important, and that the different sub-regions of the MTL each support representations of different categories of stimuli (e.g. faces, objects, and scenes). I use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with participants while they perform memory and perception tasks in order to test these new accounts of human memory and perception.

I am also interested in how differences in the structural connections between these brain regions is related to individuals' performance in visual memory and perception tasks.