Hans Op de Beeck
Contact
Hans Op de Beeck
Laboratorium voor Biologische Psychologie
Tiensestraat 102 - bus 3714
B-3000 Leuven
hans.opdebeeck@psy.kuleuven.be
(+32) 16 326039 or (+32) 16 325898
About me
I am an associate professor in the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University of Leuven (K.U.Leuven) since 2009. I am part of the Laboratory of Biological Psychology (LBP). I study the neural mechanisms underlying important mental faculties such as visual perception, visuospatial navigation, and learning.
Research positions
I obtained a master’s degree (1999) and a Ph.D. degree (2003) in Psychology in Leuven, under the supervision of Johan Wagemans and Rufin Vogels. In 2003-2006 I was a postdoc at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA), where I worked with Nancy Kanwisher and Jim DiCarlo.
During many years (PhD research and postdoc years) I received fellowships from the Fund for Scientific Research (FWO) Flanders. Other awarded support include a long-term fellowship and a career development award of the international Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP), a honorary fellowship of the Belgian-American Educational Foundation (BAEF), and the prize of the research council Leuven in 2008.
Research
My research group investigates the neural underpinnings of visual cognition and learning with techniques such as behavioral analyses (psychophysics), brain imaging (fMRI) in humans, and extracellular single-neuron recordings in rodents.
The long-term goal of the research is to understand and improve how humans and other animals with normal and deprived vision perceive and learn about their visual environment, a topic referred to as “visual intelligence”. The research starts from the fact that whatever humans and animals perceive, think, and do, is ultimately based upon what happens in the brain. Thus, brain research methods take a central position in this research. The research group applies advanced brain imaging techniques in humans to find out as much as possible about the underlying neural mechanisms in the human brain, and we complement this work with animal research (extracellular recordings combined with advanced behavioural paradigms) for questions that cannot be answered with human research. Specific research topics are the role of visual experience for internal representations of the visual environment, the role of object shape/form for object recognition and categorization, the processing of ‘special’ types of visual stimuli such as faces and written words, and the interaction between vision and other mental faculties such as navigation.
The members of the research group involved in the brain imaging research include Annelies Baeck, Marijke Brants, Elfi Goesaert, and Jonas Kubilius. This work also involves a close interaction with other people (e.g., Wouter Braet) in the context of the Methusalem project headed by prof. Johan Wagemans of the Laboratory for Experimental Psychology. Another line of research focuses upon the basic neurophysiological mechanisms underlying perception and learning in rodents. This line of work is currently being pursued by Florian Gerich, Gert Van den Bergh and Ben Vermaercke. This work also involves a close interaction with prof. Rudi D’Hooge and prof. Detlef Balschun of the Laboratory of Biological Psychology.
This research is funded through the European Research Council (ERC), multiple FWO grants and fellowships, grants from the Research Council of the K.U.Leuven (e.g., CREA, IDO, and a GOA with Rudi D’Hooge as main promotor), and the Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP).
Selected publications
A full publication list can be found elsewhere. Here are five examples:
- Op de Beeck, H. P., & Baker, C. I. (2010). The neural basis of visual object learning. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 14, 22-30. (Impact Factor: 11.7)
- Op de Beeck, H. P., Haushofer, J., & Kanwisher, N. (2008). Interpreting fMRI data: Maps, modules, and dimensions. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 9, 123-135. (Impact Factor: 26.5)
- Op de Beeck, H. P., Torfs, K., & Wagemans, J. (2008). Perceived shape similarity among unfamiliar objects and the organization of the human object vision pathway. Journal of Neuroscience, 28, 10111-10123. (Impact Factor: 7.2)
- Op de Beeck, H. P., Baker, C. I., DiCarlo, J. J., & Kanwisher, N. (2006). Discrimination training alters object representations in human extrastriate cortex. Journal of Neuroscience, 26, 13025-13036. (Impact Factor: 7.2)
- Op de Beeck, H., Wagemans, J., & Vogels, R. (2001). Inferotemporal neurons represent low-dimensional configurations of parameterized shapes. Nature Neuroscience, 4, 1244-1252. (Impact Factor: 14.7)
