CoPeST Team members

Principal Investigator | Postdocs | Project administration | Research assistance | Doctoral Students | Guests

Principal Investigator

David Melcher
I study the interaction of perception, attention, memory and action within a cognitive neuroscience framework. While most studies of perception are based on responses to an unpredictable abstract stimulus, with steady fixation, my work examines the way that perception interacts with context, action (particularly eye movements), memory, emotion and tasks constraints.

Selected Highlights
Autonomous Province of Trento (PAT) 'Grandi Progetti' Grant: Characterizing and improving brain mechanisms of attention (ATTEND).
European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant: Construction of Perceptual Space-Time (CoPeST).
Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution to Psychology (Perception/Motor Perf.), American Psychological Association (2011)
Head of the Doctoral School in Cognitive and Brain Sciences (2010 – 2014)
Coordinator, Masters in Cognitive Science CN Program (2009 - 2014)
Co-editor of the book Art and the Senses (Oxford University Press, 2012)
Member of the Editorial Board, Journal of Vision (2013 - present) and Perception/i-Perception (2016-present).

Member of the editor board, perception and iperception (2016 - present).

Download my CV. My email: david.melcher [at] unitn.it

Postdocs

David Acunzo
I am a post-doctoral fellow in the ERC project CoPeST. My focuses are the hierarchical organisation of temporal integration windows and the effects of cognitive factors on spatiotemporal perception. I use both experimental (behavioural, eye-tracking, M/EEG) and computational methods to approach these topics.
I completed my PhD at the Neuroinformatics DTC, University of Edinburgh, where I studied visual attention and emotional stimulus processing. I also worked on M/EEG pre-processing methods.

Download my CV. My email: david.acunzo [at] unitn.it

Luca Ronconi

Luca Ronconi
I am working on the ERC project CoPeST. My current research activity is focused on the possible causal role of different oscillatory neural rhythms in constraining the dynamic flow of visual information over time. To this aim, I am testing the effects of neural entrainment to sensory stimulation on psychophysical and neurophysiological (i.e., M/EEG) measures of visual integration and segregation.
In my previous research activities, I studied the neural bases of visual and attentional mechanisms, and their dysfunctions in neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism and dyslexia.

Download my CV. My email: luca.ronconi [at] unitn.it

Christoph Huber-Huber
I’m a cognitive scientist with an interdisciplinary background (philosophy, psychology, neuroscience) interested in attention and perception. Currently, I work as a postdoc on the ERC grant Construction of Perceptual Space Time, trying to find out how visual information is combined across saccadic eye movements leading to stable visual perception. In particular, I’m interested in investigating the role of prediction in this process. My methods encompass psychophysics and combined EEG and eye-tracking.

My email: christoph.huberhuber [at] unitn.it

Project administration

Kaela Venuto
With a background in international development work (for the Italian Foreign Office and the U.N. in Bosnia and not-for-profit organisations in Italy, the UK and Kosovo), and languages (bilingual Italian-English, fluent German and French and good Serbo-Croatian), I find it stimulating to work in CIMeC’s international environment, especially on foreign grants.

I currently manage David Melcher’s ERC grant 'Construction of Perceptual Space Time' (CoPeST), Olivier Collignon's ERC grant 'Mapping the Deprived Visual System: Cracking function for prediction' (MADVIS) and Giorgio Coricelli's consolidator ERC grant 'Transfer Learning within and between brains' (TRANSFER-LEARNING).

Download my CV. My email: kaela.venuto [at] untin.it

Doctoral Students

Evelyn Muschter
I obtained my Master's in Cognitive Science at the University of Trento and my B.A. in Psychology from Cleveland State University, where I was also a research assistant at Naohide Yamamoto's Spatial Cognition and Navigation Lab.
I am currently a PhD student in Prof. David Melcher's Active Perception Lab, also working on a series of experiments that investigate the construction of perceptual space-time (ERC CoPeST Project).

Download my CV. My email: evelyn.muschter [at] unitn.it

Guests

For a full list of guests, visiting professors, exchange students and alumni see the MAP website.