ABOUT ME
My name is Jason Davis, and I am an postbac research assistant in Jim Haxby's lab interested in multimodal perception, attention, and consciousness. As an undergraduate at Dartmouth, I conducted research advised by Viola Störmer and Tor Wager. Now, I seek to pursue a career in research in the field of cognitive psychology.
I seek to answer two primary questions related to consciousness:
- How does the mind/brain represent information, or the various characteristics of our subjective experience (e.g. visual, auditory, affective)?
- How does this information bubble into conscious awareness?
More specifically, I am interested in the nature of perception across different modalities, the relationship between attentional selection and conscious awareness, and how these processes differ during altered states and certain conditions (e.g. dreaming & coma).
If I am not conducting research in the lab, I am likely either playing soccer, running, reading philosophy, or cooking one of my signature bowls. If you stay on my good side, I’ll make you one for free…
CURRENT RESEARCH
Currently, my research investigates the neural and psychological principles in multimodal perception and attentional selection. My approach utilizes a range of techniques including behavioral experiments, neuroimaging, and computational modeling to investigate both processes.
Long-term goals include:
- understanding how humans represent information across different modalities
- understanding how attentional selection filters such information into consciousness
- understanding how these processes differ in (a) clinical conditions such as blindsight & persistent vegetative state and (b) altered states such as hallucinations & dreaming
Want to learn more about my research?
Here's my award-winning video from this year's Made at Dartmouth (MAD) Undergraduate Research Contest that details my current research of experience-driven attention in the auditory domain!