Research Topics

The Visual and Cognitive Neuroscience Lab investigates how information from audition, emotion, action, cognition and prediction influences visual processing. Accordingly, our research is divided into several topics.

Audition  Vision

We demonstrated that information content of sounds is represented at the earliest level of visual processing in the human brain. This sound representation exists even in the entire absence of visual input, both in blindfolded sighted participants, and in individuals who are blind from birth.

Pollicina, G., Müller, S., Dalton, P., & Vetter, P. (2025). Decoding semantic sound categories in early visual cortex. Cerebral Cortex (in press).

Montabes de la Cruz, B. M., Abbatecola, C., Luciani, R. S., Paton, A.T., Bergmann, J., Vetter, P., Petro, L. S., Muckli, L. (2024). Decoding sound content in the early visual cortex of aphantasic participants. Current Biology, 34(21):5083-5089.e3.

Vetter, P., Bola, L., Reich, L., Bennett, M., Mucki, L. & Amedi, A. (2020). Decoding natural sounds in early “visual” cortex of congenitally blind individuals. Current Biology, 30(15), 3039-3044.e2.

Vetter, P., Smith, F. W. & Mucki, L. (2014). Decoding sound and imagery content in early visual cortex. Current Biology, 24 (11), 1256-62. (Featured in Science, 2014, 345 (6193), 176-177 as Research News from other journals).

We also study how auditory information influences vision and eye movements when visual input is ambiguous or suppressed from conscious awareness.

This work is funded by a SNSF PRIMA grant (1.5 Mio CHF, 5 years) to Prof. Petra Vetter.

Ioannucci, S., & Vetter, P. (2025). Semantic audio-visual congruence modulates visual sensitivity to biological motion across awareness levels. Cognition, 262, 106181.

Hu, J., Badde, S., & Vetter, P. (2024). Auditory guidance of eye movements toward threat-related images in the absence of visual awareness. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 18:1441915.

Hu, J. & Vetter, P. (2024). How the eyes respond to sounds. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1532(1), 18-36.

The SNSF Consolidator grant ("Mapping Space in the Blind Brain", ERC replacement scheme, PI: Prof. Petra Vetter) investigates how space is represented in the brain of congenitally blind individuals. Spatial locations will be probed by audition and touch. We will then identify spatial location maps in the brain of sighted and congenitally blind individuals using ultra-high field 7T fMRI and advanced fMRI analysis methods.

Emotion  Vision

We also investigate the influence of threat-related information on vision and eye movements in the absence of visual awareness. When images are entirely suppressed from visual awareness (using a technique called Continuous Flash Suppression), we demonstrated that fearful faces attract and angry faces repel the eyes. The eyes are also attracted by threat-related car images when paired with engine sounds.

Currently, we are exploring the dynamics of eye responses when suppressed emotional information reaches conscious awareness, as well as the neural correlates of threat-related information on visual cortex.

Hu, J., Badde, S., & Vetter, P. (2024). Auditory guidance of eye movements toward threat-related images in the absence of visual awareness. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 18:1441915.

Vetter, P., Badde, S., Phelps, E. A., & Carrasco, M. (2019). Emotional faces guide the eyes in the absence of awareness. ELife, 8:e43467.

Action  Vision

Our recent results showed that reaching the hand towards Braille words in the four cardinal directions can be decoded from fMRI activity patterns in early visual cortex of congenitally blind individuals.

In sighted participants, we are also exploring how hand and foot actions influence eye movements in the absence of visual awareness.

Bola, L.*, Vetter, P.*, Wenger, M. & Amedi, A. (2023). Decoding reach direction in early “visual” cortex of congenitally blind individuals. Journal of Neuroscience, 43(46),7868-78.

Cognition  Vision

Our work bears implications for psychological and philosophical theories on how vision is affected by cognition. We have argued that there are several ways on how cognitive contents can influence visual perception, and that there is no clear-cut boundary between perception and cognition. Different senses are also differentially susceptible for cognitive influences.

Vetter, P., Badde, S., Ferre, E., Seubert, J., Shinn-Cunningham, B. (2024). Evaluating cognitive penetrability of perception across the senses. Nature Reviews Psychology, 3, 804-820.

Vetter, P. (2023). Functional visual perception requires cognitive representations. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 30 (3), 212-221.

Newen, A. & Vetter, P. (2017). Why cognitive penetration of our perceptual experience is still the most plausible account. Consciousness & Cognition, 47, 26-37.

Vetter, P. & Newen, A. (2014). Varieties of cognitive penetration in visual perception. Consciousness & Cognition, 27C, 62-75.

Prediction  Vision

Our work demonstrates that visual cortex receives meaningful information from the rest of the brain, very likely via feedback connections. One potential function of this feedback to visual cortex is the prediction of visual input. We investigated predictive feedback to early visual cortex in several studies.

Vetter, P., Grosbras, M.-H. & Muckli, L. (2015). TMS over V5 disrupts motion prediction. Cerebral Cortex, 25(4), 1052-9.

Edwards. G., Vetter, P., McGruer, F., Petro, L. & Muckli, L. (2017). Predictive feedback to V1 dynamically updates with sensory input. Scientific Reports, 7: 16538.

Vetter, P., Edwards, G., & Muckli, L. (2012). Transfer of predictive signals across saccades. Frontiers in Psychology, 3, 176.

Vetter, P., Sanders, L. & Muckli, L. (2014). Dissociation of prediction from conscious perception. Perception, 43, 1107-1113.

Attention  Vision

In earlier work, we investigated the role of attention and awareness in the visual perception of numerosity.

Vetter P., Butterworth, B. & Bahrami, B. (2011). A candidate for the attentional bottleneck: Set-size specific modulation of right TPJ during attentive enumeration. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 23(3), 728-36.

Bahrami B., Vetter P., Spolaore E., Pagano S., Butterworth B. & Rees G. (2010). Unconscious numerical priming despite interocular suppression. Psychological Science 21(2), 224-233.

Vetter, P., Butterworth, B. & Bahrami, B. (2008). Modulating attentional load affects numerosity estimation: Evidence against a pre-attentive subitizing mechanism. PLoS ONE 3 (9), e3269.