Dr Rocco Chiou
About
Biography
Visit my webpage if you're interested in knowing more about my academic journey. Check my Google Scholar for my publications.
Also visit my Twitter where I sometimes talk about my own research or ramble on politics or societal issues (such as cultural war or immigration).
ResearchResearch interests
Visit the Research section of my website for more info about my current and past research. In essence, my research focuses on 3 different aspects of human cognition and their associated brain structures.
My 1st stream of research is focused on how the brain represents different types of conceptual knowledge, such as how our knowledge about objects, words, people, and places. While different contents of knowledge preferentially engage different cortical regions, there are several regions that are commonly engaged by all types of contents, such as the bilateral anterior temporal lobes (ATL) and bilateral angular gyri (AG). For years, I've been using functional MRI and brain stimulation to investigate the differential roles of ATL and AG and content-dependent zones (which we dub 'spoke' regions) in supporting conceptual representations.
My 2nd stream of research is focused on how the brain retrieves and manipulates conceptual representations, and how such retrieval/manipulation processes differ from the mechanisms that operate on perceptual representations. In this line of research, I focus especially on the prefrontal cortex (PFC), and how the PFC interacts with other regions to enable our cognitive control on retrieving and manipulating concepts and percepts. Again, fMRI and brain stimulation are employed to study these issues.
My 3rd stream of research is focused on how the brain combines information from different types of sensory modalities. This includes normal multisensory integration that we all have, as well as anomalous integration as seen in synaesthesia. In this line of work, my methodologies include behavioural psychophysics, functional MRI, brain stimulation, as well as meta-analysis.
Research interests
Visit the Research section of my website for more info about my current and past research. In essence, my research focuses on 3 different aspects of human cognition and their associated brain structures.
My 1st stream of research is focused on how the brain represents different types of conceptual knowledge, such as how our knowledge about objects, words, people, and places. While different contents of knowledge preferentially engage different cortical regions, there are several regions that are commonly engaged by all types of contents, such as the bilateral anterior temporal lobes (ATL) and bilateral angular gyri (AG). For years, I've been using functional MRI and brain stimulation to investigate the differential roles of ATL and AG and content-dependent zones (which we dub 'spoke' regions) in supporting conceptual representations.
My 2nd stream of research is focused on how the brain retrieves and manipulates conceptual representations, and how such retrieval/manipulation processes differ from the mechanisms that operate on perceptual representations. In this line of research, I focus especially on the prefrontal cortex (PFC), and how the PFC interacts with other regions to enable our cognitive control on retrieving and manipulating concepts and percepts. Again, fMRI and brain stimulation are employed to study these issues.
My 3rd stream of research is focused on how the brain combines information from different types of sensory modalities. This includes normal multisensory integration that we all have, as well as anomalous integration as seen in synaesthesia. In this line of work, my methodologies include behavioural psychophysics, functional MRI, brain stimulation, as well as meta-analysis.
Publications
Highlights
Check the Publications page of my website to see the most updated list of my papers and download the PDF files.
Also visit my Google Scholar and ORCID where you can find some metrics of my papers, co-authors I work with, and my professional activities.