All Outputs (49)

Perceptual clustering in auditory streaming (2025)
Journal Article
Larigaldie, N., Yates, T. A., & Beierholm, U. R. (2025). Perceptual clustering in auditory streaming. PLoS Computational Biology, 21(7), Article e1013189. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1013189

Perception is dependent on the ability to separate stimuli from different objects and causes in order to perform inference and further processing. We have models of how the human brain can perform such causal inference for simple binary stimuli (e.g.... Read More about Perceptual clustering in auditory streaming.

BCI Toolbox: An open-source python package for the Bayesian causal inference model (2024)
Journal Article
Zhu, H., Beierholm, U., & Shams, L. (2024). BCI Toolbox: An open-source python package for the Bayesian causal inference model. PLoS Computational Biology, 20(7), Article e1011791. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1011791

Psychological and neuroscientific research over the past two decades has shown that the Bayesian causal inference (BCI) is a potential unifying theory that can account for a wide range of perceptual and sensorimotor processes in humans. Therefore, we... Read More about BCI Toolbox: An open-source python package for the Bayesian causal inference model.

The overlooked role of unisensory precision in multisensory research. (2024)
Journal Article
Zhu, H., Beierholm, U., & Shams, L. (2024). The overlooked role of unisensory precision in multisensory research. Current Biology, 34(6), R229-R231. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2024.01.057

Zhu et al. present an alternative explanation for the weaker multisensory illusions in football goalkeepers compared with outfielders and non-athletes, showing that better unisensory precision in goalkeepers can also account for this effect.

Proximity to rewards modulates parameters of effortful control exertion. (2024)
Journal Article
Devine, S., Roy, M., Beierholm, U., & Otto, A. R. (2024). Proximity to rewards modulates parameters of effortful control exertion. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 153(5), 1257–1267. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001561

The now-classic goal-gradient hypothesis posits that organisms increase effort expenditure as a function of their proximity to a goal. Despite nearly a century having passed since its original formulation, goal-gradient-like behavior in human cogniti... Read More about Proximity to rewards modulates parameters of effortful control exertion..

A presaccadic perceptual impairment at the postsaccadic location of the blindspot (2023)
Journal Article
Smith, D. T., Beierholm, U., & Avery, M. (2023). A presaccadic perceptual impairment at the postsaccadic location of the blindspot. PLoS ONE, 18(9), Article e0291582. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0291582

Saccadic eye movements are preceded by profound changes in visual perception. These changes have been linked to the phenomenon of ‘forward remapping’, in which cells begin to respond to stimuli that appear in their post-saccadic receptive field befor... Read More about A presaccadic perceptual impairment at the postsaccadic location of the blindspot.

Different types of uncertainty in multisensory perceptual decision making (2023)
Journal Article
Aston, S., Nardini, M., & Beierholm, U. (2023). Different types of uncertainty in multisensory perceptual decision making. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 378(1886), Article 20220349. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2022.0349

Efficient decision-making requires accounting for sources of uncertainty (noise, or variability). Many studies have shown how the nervous system is able to account for perceptual uncertainty (noise, variability) that arises from limitations in its ow... Read More about Different types of uncertainty in multisensory perceptual decision making.

Newly learned shape-colour associations show signatures of reliability-weighted averaging without forced fusion or a memory colour effect (2022)
Journal Article
Aston, S., Pattie, C., Graham, R., Slater, H., Beierholm, U., & Nardini, M. (2022). Newly learned shape-colour associations show signatures of reliability-weighted averaging without forced fusion or a memory colour effect. Journal of Vision, 22(13), Article 8. https://doi.org/10.1167/jov.22.13.8

Reliability-weighted averaging of multiple perceptual estimates (or cues) can improve precision. Research suggests that newly-learned statistical associations can be rapidly integrated in this way for efficient decision-making. Yet, it remains unclea... Read More about Newly learned shape-colour associations show signatures of reliability-weighted averaging without forced fusion or a memory colour effect.

Developmental changes in colour constancy in a naturalistic object selection task (2022)
Journal Article
Wedge-Roberts, R., Aston, S., Beierholm, U., Kentridge, R., Hurlbert, A., Nardini, M., & Olkkonen, M. (2023). Developmental changes in colour constancy in a naturalistic object selection task. Developmental Science, 26(2), Article e13306. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.13306

When the illumination falling on a surface changes, so does the reflected light. Despite this, adult observers are good at perceiving surfaces as relatively unchanging – an ability termed colour constancy. Very few studies have investigated colour co... Read More about Developmental changes in colour constancy in a naturalistic object selection task.

Evaluating Gaussian Grasp Maps for Generative Grasping Models (2022)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Prew, W., Breckon, T., Bordewich, M., & Beierholm, U. (2022, July). Evaluating Gaussian Grasp Maps for Generative Grasping Models. Presented at Proc. Int. Joint Conf. Neural Networks, Padova, Italy

Generalising robotic grasping to previously unseen objects is a key task in general robotic manipulation. The current method for training many antipodal generative grasping models rely on a binary ground truth grasp map generated from the centre thir... Read More about Evaluating Gaussian Grasp Maps for Generative Grasping Models.

Dopamine and reward-related vigor in younger and older adults (2022)
Journal Article
Hird, E. J., Beierholm, U., De Boer, L., Axelsson, J., Backman, L., & Guitart-Masip, M. (2022). Dopamine and reward-related vigor in younger and older adults. Neurobiology of Aging, 118, 34-43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2022.06.003

Vigor reflects how motivated people are to respond to stimuli. We previously showed that, on average, humans are more vigorous when a higher rate of reward is available, and that this relationship is modulated by the dopamine precursor levodopa. Dopa... Read More about Dopamine and reward-related vigor in younger and older adults.

Bayesian Causal Inference: A Unifying Neuroscience Theory (2022)
Journal Article
Shams, L., & Beierholm, U. (2022). Bayesian Causal Inference: A Unifying Neuroscience Theory. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 137, Article 104619. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104619

Understanding of the brain and the principles governing neural processing requires theories that are parsimonious, can account for a diverse set of phenomena, and can make testable predictions. Here, we review the theory of Bayesian causal inference,... Read More about Bayesian Causal Inference: A Unifying Neuroscience Theory.

Newly learned novel cues to location are combined with familiar cues but not always with each other (2022)
Journal Article
Aston, S., Beierholm, U., & Nardini, M. (2022). Newly learned novel cues to location are combined with familiar cues but not always with each other. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 48(6), 639-652. https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0001014

Mature perceptual systems can learn new arbitrary sensory signals (novel cues) to properties of the environment, but little is known about the extent to which novel cues are integrated into normal perception. In normal perception, multiple uncertain... Read More about Newly learned novel cues to location are combined with familiar cues but not always with each other.

Neuromatch Academy: a 3-week, online summer school in computational neuroscience (2022)
Journal Article
’t Hart, B., Achakulvisut, T., Adeyemi, A., Akrami, A., Alicea, B., Alonso-Andres, A., Alzate-Correa, D., Ash, A., Ballesteros, J., Balwani, A., Batty, E., Beierholm, U., Benjamin, A., Bhalla, U., Blohm, G., Blohm, J., Bonnen, K., Brigham, M., Brunton, B., Butler, J., …van Viegen, T. (2022). Neuromatch Academy: a 3-week, online summer school in computational neuroscience. The journal of open source education, 5(49), Article 118. https://doi.org/10.21105/jose.00118

Neuromatch Academy (https://academy.neuromatch.io; (van Viegen et al., 2021)) was designed as an online summer school to cover the basics of computational neuroscience in three weeks. The materials cover dominant and emerging computational neuroscien... Read More about Neuromatch Academy: a 3-week, online summer school in computational neuroscience.

Detecting a viewer's familiarity with a face: Evidence from event-related brain potentials and classifier analyses (2021)
Journal Article
Wiese, H., Anderson, D., Beierholm, U., Tuettenberg, S. C., Young, A. W., & Burton, A. M. (2022). Detecting a viewer's familiarity with a face: Evidence from event-related brain potentials and classifier analyses. Psychophysiology, 59(1), Article e13950. https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.13950

Human observers recognise the faces of people they know efficiently and without apparent effort. Consequently, recognising a familiar face is often assumed to be an automatic process beyond voluntary control. However, there are circumstances in which... Read More about Detecting a viewer's familiarity with a face: Evidence from event-related brain potentials and classifier analyses.

Central tendency biases must be accounted for to consistently capture Bayesian cue combination in continuous response data (2021)
Journal Article
Aston, S., Negen, J., Nardini, M., & Beierholm, U. (2022). Central tendency biases must be accounted for to consistently capture Bayesian cue combination in continuous response data. Behavior Research Methods, 54(1), 508-521. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-021-01633-2

Observers in perceptual tasks are often reported to combine multiple sensory cues in a weighted average that improves precision – in some studies, approaching statistically-optimal (Bayesian) weighting, but in others departing from optimality, or not... Read More about Central tendency biases must be accounted for to consistently capture Bayesian cue combination in continuous response data.

Improving Robotic Grasping on Monocular Images Via Multi-Task Learning and Positional Loss (2021)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Prew, W., Breckon, T., Bordewich, M., & Beierholm, U. (2021, January). Improving Robotic Grasping on Monocular Images Via Multi-Task Learning and Positional Loss. Presented at 25th International Conference on Pattern Recognition (ICPR 2020), Milan, Italy

In this paper we introduce two methods of improving real-time object grasping performance from monocular colour images in an end-to-end CNN architecture. The first is the addition of an auxiliary task during model training (multi-task learning). Our... Read More about Improving Robotic Grasping on Monocular Images Via Multi-Task Learning and Positional Loss.

Using the past to estimate sensory uncertainty (2020)
Journal Article
Beierholm, U., Rohe, T., Ferrari, A., Stegle, O., & Noppeney, U. (2020). Using the past to estimate sensory uncertainty. eLife, 9, Article e54172. https://doi.org/10.7554/elife.54172

To form a more reliable percept of the environment, the brain needs to estimate its own sensory uncertainty. Current theories of perceptual inference assume that the brain computes sensory uncertainty instantaneously and independently for each stimul... Read More about Using the past to estimate sensory uncertainty.

Specular highlights improve colour constancy when other cues are weakened (2020)
Journal Article
Wedge-Roberts, R., Aston, S., Beierholm, U., Kentridge, R., Hurlbert, A., Nardini, M., & Olkkonen, M. (2020). Specular highlights improve colour constancy when other cues are weakened. Journal of Vision, 20(12), 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1167/jov.20.12.4

Previous studies suggest that to achieve color constancy, the human visual system makes use of multiple cues, including a priori assumptions about the illumination (“daylight priors”). Specular highlights have been proposed to aid constancy, but the... Read More about Specular highlights improve colour constancy when other cues are weakened.

Using Occam's razor and Bayesian modelling to compare discrete and continuous representations in numerosity judgements (2020)
Journal Article
Spicer, J., Sanborn, A. N., & Beierholm, U. R. (2020). Using Occam's razor and Bayesian modelling to compare discrete and continuous representations in numerosity judgements. Cognitive Psychology, 122, Article 101309. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2020.101309

Previous research has established that numeric estimates are based not just on perceptual data but also past experience, and so may be influenced by the form of this stored information. It remains unclear, however, how such experience is represented:... Read More about Using Occam's razor and Bayesian modelling to compare discrete and continuous representations in numerosity judgements.

Bayesian transfer in a complex spatial localization task (2020)
Journal Article
Kiryakova, R., Aston, S., Beierholm, U., & Nardini, M. (2020). Bayesian transfer in a complex spatial localization task. Journal of Vision, 20(6), Article 17. https://doi.org/10.1167/jov.20.6.17

Prior knowledge can help observers in various situations. Adults can simultaneously learn two location priors and integrate these with sensory information to locate hidden objects. Importantly, observers weight prior and sensory (likelihood) informat... Read More about Bayesian transfer in a complex spatial localization task.