Johannah Völler

Yesterday at #ICON2025 I got to present our poster with #EttoreAmbrosini, @palencianoap.bsky.social, and @mruz.bsky.social on flexible task representations. I loved the chance to share our preliminary results and hear such thoughtful feedback!

We hope this work inspires new questions about this multifaceted phenomenon, which has received relatively little attention in the long-term memory field before.

Regarding long-term consequences, we predict a strong encoding of episodic and semantic information, supported by the integration of prediction errors and the semanticization of the input, but a weaker encoding of perceptual details.

We propose that the ambiguous stimulus initially induces prediction errors (PEs) across the hierarchy. Once disambiguation occurs, these PEs can be rapidly resolved and integrated, accompanied by a decrease in representational dimensionality as the disambiguated image is linked to existing schemas.

In this opinion paper, we explore the mnemonic consequences of sudden perceptual learning, i.e. the representational features characterising the abrupt disambiguation of an ambiguous stimulus (e.g., a Mooney image).

👩‍💻 New preprint out (FIRST one of my PhD journey) with the incredible @lindedomingo.bsky.social @ortiztudela.bsky.social @gonzalezgarcia.bsky.social

"From sudden perceptual learning to enduring engrams: A representational perspective" 🧠

doi.org/10.31234/osf...

🚨 There's an open postdoc position on sudden perceptual learning at the CIMCYC (University of Granada) - very nice people, excellent research environment, and Spanish lifestyle! Go check it out :)

Very excited to share our new preprint on visual ambiguity resolution. Check it out 👇

Novel Verbal Instructions Recruit Abstract Neural Patterns of Time-Variable Information Dimensionality Human performance is endowed by neural representations of information that is relevant for behavior, some of which are also activated in a preparatory fashion to optimize later execution. Most studies...

[🧵1/6] Would you like to know more about how the brain organizes complex, novel task information? Check out our last study in #JNeurosci @sfnjournals :
www.jneurosci.org/content/45/1...
@palencianoap.bsky.social @gonzalezgarcia.bsky.social @mruz.bsky.social @cimcyc.bsky.social

We will explore sudden learning in humans and artificial agents to uncover why these moments feel so sudden, which information we actually learn, and the role of prediction errors!

📣 ICON Symposium

Really excited to announce our symposium at @ICON this year on Sudden Learning Across Systems!

Together with lots of cool people: @gonzalezgarcia.bsky.social @lindedomingo.bsky.social @ortiztudela.bsky.social @anikaloewe.bsky.social @jazzmaniatico.bsky.social and Andrea Greve!

This is work together with @jvoeller.bsky.social, @vincentcheung.bsky.social, @numole.bsky.social, Konstantin Weise, Markus Kiefer and @gesahartwigsen.bsky.social at @unileipzig.bsky.social and @copla.bsky.social @mpicbs.bsky.social.

🚨 New preprint!! Using condition-and-perturb TMS, we show that functional interaction between multimodal and modality-specific cortices is causally relevant for conceptual knowledge retrieval: ssrn.com/abstract=510...