IR3C, Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour

How does your self-image change how you express yourself? There's no easy way to test this in the real world, but Konstantina Kilteni of the University of Barcelona in Spain and colleagues thought it might affect how people play music. To test the idea, they hooked volunteers up to a virtual-reality drumming simulation which uses motion capture to place their strikes on a west African kind of drum known as a djembe into the virtual world.

The journal PLOS ONE has recently published a study which provides new data around attention and visual perception. The article "A role of eye vergence in covert attention" is signed by led by Hans Supèr, ICREA researcher at our Institute (IR3C); Maria Solé Puig, J. Antonio Aznar Casanova and Laura Pérez Zapato, all of them researchers at the IR3C, have also participated in the study.

Fins a l’1 de maig es pot participar en el NeuroConcurs: «Tu, el teu cervell i Youtube». Es tracta d’un concurs de curtmetratges que té com a objectiu vincular la neurociència amb aspectes quotidians, per tal de posar de manifest la presència constant del sistema nerviós i del cervell en el nostre dia a dia i entendre’n la importància. El concurs s’emmarca en el projecte NeuroUB: Neurociència, Música i Art.

Aquesta és la primera activitat adreçada a públic general del projecte NeuroUB. Aquest projecte de divulgació científica inspirat enl’Any de la Neurociència a Espanya té com a objectiu principal fomentar l’interès social per les neurociències. Gràcies a la vinculació de la ciència amb àmbits aparentment tan allunyats com la música i el cinema, es posa de manifest la importància de la recerca en aquest camp.

Universitat de Barcelona starts the new project NeuroUB: Neuroscience, Music and Art.

This is an activity organized by our Institute (IR3C) and the Unidad de Cultura Científica e Innovación (UCC + i) from Área de Comunicación of the Universidad de Barcelona.

The project is funded by the Fundación Española para la Ciencia y la Tecnología (FECYT) - Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad and by the Secretaría de Universidades e Investigación del Departamento de Economía y Conocimiento of the Generalitat de Catalunya.

VERE Project - Dr. Melvin Slater: The human mind can control a machine, as if it were his own body.

The research group Vision and Action Control (VISCA, www.visca.cat) of the Faculty of Psychology of the University of Barcelona (www.ub.edu) seeks candidates to present themselves to the call of the Juan de la Cierva Program of postdoctoral contract of 3 years.

This article was published recently by two researchers of our Institute, in the journal PLoS Computation Biology.

Unifying Time to Contact Estimation and Collision Avoidance across Species

Matthias S. Keil1,2*, Joan López-Moliner1,2

1 University of Barcelona, Faculty for Psychology, Basic Psychology Department, Barcelona, Spain, 2 Research Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behavior (IR3C), Campus Mundet, Barcelona, Spain

Dr. Noemí Pereda Beltrán has been invited by the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe (OMS) as a national expert to participate in a meeting to prepare the first draft of the European report on child abuse prevention.

Join us every last Friday of the month in the Barcelona Lecture Series.

Dr. Melvin Slater explained to the BBC and the newspaper La Vanguardia the details on its current projects: Beaming.

The research group Vision and Control of Action (VISCA, www.visca.cat) at the Psychology faculty of University of Barcelona (www.ub.edu) offers a 4 year full time PhD fellowship.

Dr. Hans Super, ICREA researcher of the IR3C has filed a patent application with the number EP12380018.7, entitled "METHOD OF MEASURING ATTENTION" of which he is the inventor.

The request is being processed and we will inform on the actions of this presentation.

Joan López-Moliner, researcher of IR3C has been awarded with the ICREA Acadèmia Distinguished Professorship issued in 2010.

Organized by several research groups of our institute, this montly series will begin with the talk "Human brain activity during selective and divided auditory and visual attention" by Prof. Kimmo Alho, from the University of Hwlsinki (Finland), next Friday March 30th at 3:00pm.

The talks will take place at "Sala de Graus", Facultat de Psicologia, Campus Mundet, Universitat de Barcelona.

The vacancies announcements can be found here

Here the article that describe the "cave" with a short interview to the Principal Investigador, prof Mel Slater, ICREA researcher at IR3C.

Dr Anna Brown, currently research associate at the University of Cambridge, UK, was awarded by the Psychometric Society with the Dissertation Award 2011, which acknowledges the best PhD Thesis within the field of Psychometrics defended last year. She has been invited to give a plenary talk about her work at the next conference of the Psychometric Society, Hong Kong, 13^th of July. Dr Brown has also been awarded by the University of Cambridge with the Isaac Newton Trust Award. Dr. Brown obtained her PhD within the doctoral program “Personality and Behavior”, under the supervision of Dr Alberto Maydeu of IR3C, University of Barcelona.

It is the first time that a PhD student from Spain receives this award. Congratulations!

BAW is the global campaign to increase public awareness about the progress and benefits of brain research. Every March BAW unites the efforts of organizations worldwide in a week-long celebration of the brain. 

During BAW campaign partners organize activities to educate and excite people of all ages about the brain and brain research.  Events are limited only by the organizers’ imaginations.  Examples include open days at neuroscience laboratories; museum exhibitions about the brain; lectures on brain-related topics; displays at malls, libraries, and community centers; and classroom workshops

http://www.dana.org/brainweek/calendar/

Alberto Maydeu-Olivares and Carles Escera, researchers of IR3C have been awarded with the ICREA Acadèmia Distinguished Professorship issued in 2010.

Within the framework of the official opening of the IR3C, the first Workshop on Brain, Cognition, Behavior and Mental Health was organized. The workshop took place on February 9th, 2011, at the Palau de les Heures, and was organized in collaboration between the IR3C and the Parc Sanitari Sant Joan de Déu.

The inauguration of the Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior (IR3C) took place on Tuesday 8th of February 2011 in the Graduation Hall of the Faculty of Psychology of University of Barcelona.