THE SUBJECTIVITY LAB
vision • mental imagery • consciousness • metacognition
We are an interdisciplinary lab in the Department of Psychology at Northeastern University led by Dr. Jorge Morales.
Our lab investigates subjective conscious experiences: how we see, how we imagine, and how introspection opens a window into our own minds.
Vision & Imagery
Why does the world “out there” look the way it does “from here”? How does our perspective affect what we see? How similar are perception and imagination? What is mental imagery good for?
Consciousness
How does neural activity give rise to conscious awareness? Why do we have a conscious mind? Could our minds do exactly the same if they were completely unconscious or is consciousness special?
Metacognition
How do we know our own minds? Is introspection trustworthy? Is metacognition domain-general or domain-specific? Are we better at knowing certain parts of our mind than others?
To understand the conscious mind, we leverage tools from psychology, neuroscience and philosophy. Our interdisciplinary research integrates psychophysics, neuroimaging and theoretical approaches.
Psychology
Our lab uses tools from vision science and psychophysics to tackle empirically centuries-old philosophical questions as well as current issues in perception and mental imagery.
Neuroscience
With modern neuroimaging technologies we explore the neural basis of the subjective character of the mind.
Philosophy
Our questions are directly inspired and supported by a rich philosophical tradition that reflects upon both the mind and the sciences of the mind.