Biology

Dr. Bhuvanesh Awasthi
University of Glasgow, UK

Abstract:

A crucial issue in the cognitive neuroscience of face perception has
centered on the extraction and processing of relevant information from
the visual environment. In particular, the influence of low-level
stimulus features on high-level information processing remains under
investigation and debate. While most previous research addresses
individual roles of the spatial frequency (SF) scales (using just one
SF band at a time), issues regarding the integration of these scales
have remained unexplored. In order to better understand how faces are
processed by the visual system, it is necessary to determine the
relative contribution of low and high spatial frequency scales in the
perception of faces. Using visually guided reaching as a continuous
behavioral measure and magnetoencephalography, face perception and
categorization was investigated in healthy adults. Results from the
reaching trajectories as well as the neuroimaging study demonstrate a
behavioral significance and the neural primacy for low spatial
frequency information in stronger, faster and lateralized perception
of faces.


Short bio: Bhuvanesh Awasthi is a researcher in the area of Cognitive
and Affective Neuroscience. His expertise is in the neuroimaging
(M/EEG and fMRI) and behavioral investigations of visual perception,
emotion-cognition interactions, consciousness and decision making.

Currently, he is a Senior Research Associate at the University of
Glasgow, UK. Previously, he has worked at the Higher School of
Economics in Moscow, University of Wisconsin-Madison in the United
States and the CSIRO, the National Science Agency of Australia. His
early training was in Biological Sciences (from University of Pune)
followed by a Masters in Consciousness Studies (from BITS, Pilani) and
a PhD in Cognitive Science from Macquarie University, Sydney,
Australia.