The World Through Your Brain’s Eyes

This classic Behrens et al. study looked at how people learn from past experiences when making decisions. In a game where participants chose between blue and green options with different rewards, they found that humans naturally adjust how much they learn from new information based on how quickly situations change. FMRI results showed that the anterior cingulate cortex played a key role in how we make decisions under this kind of uncertainty.

This Planck Institute study reveals that our brain processes information by combining what something is with when it happens, rather than treating them separately. They suggest that fMRI studies typically focus on where things happen in the brain, while EEG studies examine when things happen, but the brain combines both. Scientists argue that research methods need to study these aspects together to better understand brain function.

This University of Tübingen study looked at how crows become aware of seeing things by training them to report when they see faint images. They found two types of brain cells– ones that signal "I see it" and others that signal "I see nothing". This reveals that being conscious of seeing something involves active brain processes, but also that the perception of nothing, not seeing something, is also an active process in the brain.