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Bianca van Kemenade Multisensory Integration Our senses are constantly bombarded with information from the different modalities. In order to interact with our environment in an appropriate manner, we have to select which information is most important. In the process of integrating this information to give rise to a conscious percept, the different modalities can influence each other: our conscious perception of a stimulus in one modality can be influenced by a stimulus in another modality. This process is often referred to as multisensory integration, or cross-modal processing. Multisensory integration is a broad topic that covers a wide range of research; therefore I will select some of the most important findings. I will introduce some interesting illusions, discuss some studies on the neural mechanisms underlying multisensory integration, and cover some patient studies. With this overview I would like to introduce this fascinating topic to other scientists working in different fields. Christian Kellner Color Vision: From the outside world via the cortex to consciousness Color and color vision has always been a topic that fascinated scholars, ranging from Dalton's research of color blindness over Goethe's "Theory of Color" to the "dispute" between the trichromatic theory of Young–Helmholtz theory and the opponent process theory of Hering. Color (vision) also became a highly debated topic in the Philosophy of mind with the problem of "qualia" (and its suggested consequence of the "explanatory gap"). At the core of a lot of those problems lies the fundamental question of the relationship between the outside (physical) world and the subjective personal experience. Of course, nowadays neuroscientists believe that the link is made via the brain. Though (color) vision is a field that has undergone intensive research by neuroscientists, there are of course some yet fundamental but unsolved problems; two famous ones are the problem of dichromats ("what do 'color blind' people see") and the problem of unique hues (the elementary chromatic hues: red, green, yellow & blue) and their (still missing) neuronal correlates. I will mainly focus on the current state of the latter problem and if there is time/space left I will also try to present some new insights about the problem of color blindness. 10
Corinde Wiers The Neural Effects of Alcohol Bias Modification Training The pathology of alcoholism is associated with maladaptive attention- and approach biases towards substance-related stimuli, i.e. the tendency of alcoholic patients to approach rather than avoid these stimuli, even though they are not rationally inclined to. From animal studies it is known that limbic areas are structurally and functionally altered after long-term drinking, but the neural mechanisms of alcohol biases in humans remain largely unknown. In this talk I present my currently ongoing research, in which I use fMRI and EEG to study brain regions involved in these biases in alcoholic patients. My hypothesis is that limbic brain activity predicts performance on a computerised alcohol bias task. My next step is to understand how bias modification training, a promising intervention in which patients selectively learn to avoid rather than approach stimuli, modulates the brain and may prevent relapse. Finally I talk about how neuroimaging can be of use for the treatment of alcohol addiction directly. 11
Page 1: ISSUES IN PHILOSOPHY AND NEUROSCIEN
Page 4 and 5: PANEL 1: CONSCIOUSNESS I Program Mo
Page 6 and 7: Wedesday, April 19 th PANEL 6: WILL
Page 8 and 9: Armin Bahl Smarter than One Might T
Page 12 and 13: David Kaufmann Neuroscientific Rese
Page 14 and 15: Georgina Torbet Cognitive Neuroscie
Page 16 and 17: Ryszard Auksztulewicz Recurrent Neu
Page 18 and 19: Smadar Ovadia-Caro Reduction of Int
Page 20 and 21: Berlin Faculty List of participants

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