Dr. Dassonville is interested in the brain's ability to form mental representations of the world using sensory cues. In particular, his research uses behavioral techniques and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the spatiotemporal patterns of neural activity that underlie perceptual awareness, while using various perceptual phenomena (e.g., visual masking, figure-ground segregation, binocular rivalry) to directly manipulate the contents of awareness.

In addition, his laboratory examines the many possible frames of reference used by the brain to map the location of an object in three-dimensional space.  By assessing the performance of human subjects responding to sensory stimuli presented under various conditions, these experiments provide insights into the sensorimotor processes that allow the eye or hand to be moved accurately to the location of an object.

Selected Publications (click here for a full listing).

Lester, B.D., Dassonville, P. (2013). Shifts of visuospatial attention do not cause the spatial distortions of the Roelofs effect. Journal of Vision.

Lester, B.D., Dassonville, P. (2011). Attentional control settings modulate susceptibility to the induced Roelofs effect. Attention, Perception & Psychophysics, 73:1398-1406.

Walter, E., Dassonville, P. (2011). Activation in a frontoparietal cortical network underlies individual differences in the performance of an Embedded Figures Task. PLoS ONE, 6:e20742.

Walter, E., Dassonville, P., Bochsler, T. (2009). A specific autistic trait that modulates visuospatial illusion susceptibility. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 39:339-349.

Walter, E., Dassonville, P. (2008). Visuospatial contextual processing in the parietal cortex: An fMRI investigation of the induced Roelofs effect. NeuroImage, 42:1686-1697.

Dassonville, P., Bala, J.K. (2004). Action, perception and the Roelofs effect: A mere illusion of dissociation. PLoS Biology, 2(11):e364(web) or 1936-1945 (print).

Dassonville, P., Bridgeman, B., Bala, J.K., Thiem, P., Sampanes, A. (2004). The induced Roelofs effect: Two visual systems or the shift of a single reference frame? Vision Research, 44:603-611.

Dassonville, P., Zhu, E.-H., Ugurbil, K., Kim, S.-G., & Ashe, J. (1997). Functional activation of motor cortex reflects the direction and extent of handedness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 94:14015-14018.

Dassonville, P. (1995). Haptic localization and the internal representation of the hand in space. Experimental Brain Research, 106, 434-448.

Dassonville, P., Schlag, J., & Schlag-Rey, M. (1995). The use of egocentric and exocentric location cues in saccadic programming. Vision Research, 35:2191-2199.