Enhancing Real-World Event Memory
Memory is essential for shaping how we interpret the world, plan for the future, and understand ourselves, yet effective cognitive interventions for real-world episodic memory loss remain scarce. This talk introduces HippoCamera, a smartphone-based intervention inspired by how the brain supports memory, designed to enhance real-world episodic recollection by replaying high-fidelity autobiographical cues. It will showcase how our approach improves memory, mood, and hippocampal activity while uncovering links between memory distinctiveness, well-being, and the perception of time.
A sense without sensors: how non-temporal stimulus features influence the perception and the neural representation of time
Any sensory experience of the world, from the touch of a caress to the smile on our friend’s face, is embedded in time and it is often associated with the perception of the flow of it. The perception of time is therefore a peculiar sensory experience built without dedicated sensors. How the perception of time and the content of a sensory experience interact to give rise to this unique percept is unclear. A few empirical evidences show the existence of this interaction, for example the speed of a moving object or the number of items displayed on a computer screen can bias the perceived duration of those objects. However, to what extent the coding of time is embedded within the coding of the stimulus itself, is sustained by the activity of the same or distinct neural populations and subserved by similar or distinct neural mechanisms is far from clear. Addressing these puzzles represents a way to gain insight on the mechanism(s) through which the brain represents the passage of time. In my talk I will present behavioral and neuroimaging studies to show how concurrent changes of visual stimulus duration, speed, visual contrast and numerosity, shape and modulate brain’s and pupil’s responses and, in case of numerosity and time, influence the topographic organization of these features along the cortical visual hierarchy.