General DescriptionA Postdoc position for three years for 1.0 fte is available at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Proactive Brain Lab (
www.proactivebrainlab.com) headed by Dr. Freek van Ede. The position is part of the ERC Starting Grant MEMTICIPATION: "
Preparing memories for action: how visual working memories are sculpted by their anticipated use".The Research ProjectThe MEMTICIPATION project aims to study the anticipatory dynamics that facilitate the translation of working-memory contents into purposeful behaviour. It starts from the perspective that (visual) working memory does not serve to 'represent the past' but to 'prepare for the future'. Adopting this future-focused perspective on working memory opens many interesting research questions that tie in nicely with our broader lab mission.
In the Proactive Brain Lab, we adopt the perspective of the brain as a fundamentally dynamic, anticipating, and action-oriented organ in which core cognitive functions of working memory, attention, and decision making take center stage. We take an integrative focus, aiming to bring together research on visual working memory and attention with that on planning, decision making, timing, and action. We use multiple methodologies, with a current focus on EEG, eye-tracking (microsaccades), and virtual reality.
Depending on experience, the post-doc may uniquely contribute to and drive, for example, our ambition to integrate dynamic decision-making perspectives with our ongoing research on visual working memory and attention, and/or to study visual attention and working memory operations while engaging in ongoing behaviour.