Claudio Simoncini MSc

I have completed my five years degree in Experimental Psychology (MSc equivalent of Italy) at University of Florence, defending my thesis in February 2008. The research project of my thesis, still supervised by Prof. Stefano Baldassi, focuses onto the influence of reward in modulating low-level visual perception (i.e. sensory thresholds for discrimination of simple features) when attention is engaged in a concurrent, highly demanding task. 

I started my PhD on December 2008 under the supervision of Guillaume Masson PhD and Pascal Mamassian PhD at Institut de Neurosciences Cognitives de la Mediterranee in Marseille. Here I investigate how motion information is pooled across different MT spatio-temporal channels to reconstruct speed information.  The characteristic of my research is to integrate results gotten through the Ocular Following Response recording with the results gotten by psychophysics task, to understand better how the visual system analyzes the information and subsequently uses it to do behavioral task.

Scientific Interests

Visual perception, Motion perception, Decision making and perceptual decision in human and animals, ocular movements, psychophysics and neurophysiology of the visual system.

Workshop and course:

Brain imaging course, Malvern, UK, July 2010;

Computational Neuroscience: From representations to behavior, Marseille, France, May 2010;

Computational vision workshop, Rauischholzhausen, Germany, August 2009;

Brain dynamics, from information to behavior, Marseille, France, Avril 2009;

Computational Workshop: Cue combination - Unifying perceptual theory - Rauischolzhausen, Germany 2008;

Publications:

Journal Article:

Simoncini C., Perrinet L.U., Montagnini A., Mamassian P., Masson G.S. "More is not always better: different motion decoding for perception and action". (Submitted)

Baldassi S., Simoncini C. "Reward sharpens orientation coding independently of attention" . 2011 Vol 5, No 13 Frontiers in decision Neuroscience, Pg. 1-11;

Conference Proceedings:

Simoncini C., Montagnini A., Perrinet L.U., Mamassian P., Masson G.S. "Pattern discrimination for moving random textures: richer stimuli are more difficult to recognize". Abstract. 2011 Vol 10, No. 7 Journal of Vision, Pg. 834;

Simoncini C., Perrinet L.U., Montagnini A., Mamassian P., Masson G.S. "Different pooling of motion information for perceptual speed discrimination and behavioral speed estimation". Abstract. 2010 Vol 10, No. 7 Journal of Vision, Pg. 834;

Baldassi S., Simoncini C. "Reward modulates the signal to noise ratio of orientation tuned channels". Abstract. 2009 Vol. 38 supplement of Perception, Pg. 157;

Simoncini C., Baldassi S. "Low-Level effects of reward can be disentangled from both spatial and feature attention". Abstract. 2008 Vol. 37 supplement of Perception, Pg. 140; 

Simoncini C., Baldassi S. "Modulation of orientation discrimination thresholds by positive reward in the absence of attention". Abstract. 2007 Vol. 36 supplement of Perception, Pg. 133;

Conference:

Simoncini C., Montagnini A., Perrinet L.U., Mamassian P., Masson G.S. "Ocular Following Response for natural statistic visual stimuli". Poster at 10 Colloque Societé des Neurosciences - Marseille 2011;

Simoncini C. "Dissociation between perception and eye movement for rich visual stimuli". Poster at European Conference Eye Movement - Marseille 2011;

Simoncini C., Montagnini A., Perrinet L.U., Mamassian P., Masson G.S. "Pattern discrimination for moving random textures: richer stimuli are more difficult to recognize". Poster at Vision Science Society - Naples 2011;

Simoncini C., Perrinet L.U., Montagnini A., Mamassian P., Masson G.S. "Different pooling of motion information for perceptual speed discrimination and behavioral speed estimation". Poster at Vision Science Society - Naples 2010;

Baldassi S., Simoncini C. "Reward modulates the signal to noise ratio of orientation tuned channels". Talk at 32th European Conference on Visual Perception - Regensburg 2009;

Simoncini C., Baldassi S. "Gli effetti del reward in assenza di attenzione". Poster at Associazione Italiana Psicologia - Sez. Sperimentale - Como 2008;

Simoncini C., Baldassi S. "Reward tunes up the representation o fan oriented target and it is not attention!". Poster at Computational Workshop: Cue combination - Unifying perceptual theory - Rauischolzhausen 2008;

Simoncini C., Baldassi S. "Low-Level effects of reward can be disentangled from both spatial and feature attention". Poster at 31th European Conference on Visual Perception - Utrecht 2008; 

Simoncini C., Baldassi S. "Modulation of orientation discrimination thresholds by positive reward in the absence of attention". Poster at 30th European Conference on Visual Perception - Arezzo 2007;