Psychology Seminar Series - Seeing the trees through the forest: Spatiotemporal routines in visual perception

Experimental paradigms in cognitive neuroscience often rely on reductionist designs, presenting isolated stimuli stripped of spatial and temporal context. Yet in natural vision, context fundamentally shapes how elementary features are perceived and integrated. In this talk, I will present research showing that visual perception depends on context at three levels: spatial and configural structure, temporal regularities across multiple timescales, and internal brain states that modulate spatiotemporal integration. I will then introduce the framework of spatiotemporal routines, proposing that perception arises from dynamic interactions between external context and internal states. Finally, I will outline future directions combining neuroimaging and computational modeling to understand individual differences in contextual integration.