# Neural correlates of ensemble perception

> **NIH NIH R15** · BERNARD M. BARUCH COLLEGE · 2020 · $338,929

## Abstract

Project summary
The capacity of the visual system is limited: several studies have shown that we
can only extract detailed information about a handful of objects at a time. Despite
these limitations, people subjectively report rich perceptual experiences and they
demonstrate a sophisticated ability to navigate the visual environment. One
mechanism that potentially accounts for this discrepancy is ensemble perception:
the ability to summarize large amounts of information that exceed the limits of
attention. A growing body of research now suggests that people extract the
statistical mean from large groups of objects, for example they can report the
average size and speed of objects in the visual environment, as well as average
expression in a crowd of faces. Although there are several behavioral
experiments investigating the speed, efficiency and automaticity of ensemble
coding, the neural substrates of this mechanism remains largely unexplored. In
particular, the areas involved in ensemble coding, as well as the timing by which
ensemble properties are computed remain unclear. The goal of this proposal is to
test the hypothesis that ensemble properties are represented in early visual
areas (Aim 1), and are computed at early stages of visual processing (Aim 2).
One set of experiments (Aim 1) will use functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging
(fMRI) and Multivariate Pattern Analysis (MVPA) to decode whether early visual
areas contain information about the specific mean value that participants
perceive at a given time. Another set of experiments (Aim 2) will use
Electroencephalography (EEG) to investigate the timing of ensemble
perception, and to test the hypothesis that ensemble perception occurs before
the processing of individual object details. Overall, the results will shed light on
the neural representation of ensemble perception, and will advance our
understanding of the mechanisms by which the visual system extracts large
amounts of information from complex scenes without focused attention.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9965494
- **Project number:** 1R15EY030679-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** BERNARD M. BARUCH COLLEGE
- **Principal Investigator:** Tatiana Aloi Emmanouil
- **Activity code:** R15 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $338,929
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-05-01 → 2025-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9965494

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9965494, Neural correlates of ensemble perception (1R15EY030679-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9965494. Licensed CC0.

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