Pei Sun Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Tsinghua University

How do we recognize objects and able to name them appropriately? Using psychophysics and neuroimaging techniques, my lab aims to understand the neural mechanisms of object recognition. This is a challenging project, given the sheer amount—87 billions—of neurons in the human brain.  We believe that the columnar (~0.5 mm in monkey and ~1.0 mm in human) or micro columnar serve as the basic functional units for processing biologically meaningful properties, including object recognitions. Currently, our lab is developing high-resolution fMRI techniques to investigate these questions.

Degrees

Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ph.D., 1996

Shanxi Normal University, M.S., 1993

Shanxi Normal University, B.S., 1990

Appointments

Tsinghua University Department of Psychology, Associate Professor and Associate Director, 2013 – current

RIKEN（RIkagaku KENkyusho/Institute of Physical and Chemical Research ) Research Fellow, 2002 – 2013

Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Research Assistant/Associate, 1998 - 2002

Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Science, Postdoctoral Fellow, 1996 - 1998

Selected Publications

Wang, F., Sun, J., Sun, P.*, Weidler, B., & Abrams, R.* (2017) Influence of Simple Action on Subsequent Manual and Ocular Responses. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 79:389-395.

Li, Y.Q.*, Long, J.Y., Huang, B., Yu, T.Y., Wu, W., Liu, Y.J., Liang, C.H., Sun, P.* (2015) Crossmodal Integration Enhances Neural Representation of Task-Relevant Features in Audiovisual Face Perception. Cerebral Cortex, 25: 384-395.

Sun, P., Gardner, J. L., Costagli, M., Ueno, K., Waggoner, R. A., Tanaka, K., and Cheng, K. (2013) Demonstration of tuning to stimulus orientation in human visual cortex: a high-resolution fMRI study with a novel continuous and periodic stimulation paradigm. Cerebral Cortex, 23:1618-1629.

Sun, P., Ueno, K., Waggoner, R. A., Gardner, J. L., Tanaka, K., and Cheng, K. (2007) A temporal frequency dependent functional architecture in human primary visual cortex revealed by high-resolution fMRI. Nature Neuroscience, 10: 1404-1406.

Gardner, J. L., Sun, P., Waggoner, R. A., Ueno K., Tanaka, K., and Cheng, K. (2005) Contrast adaptation and representation in human early visual cortex. Neuron, 47: 607-620.

Contact Information

Email: peisun@tsinghua.edu.cn

Office: Room 305, Weiqing Building, Tsinghua University, Haidian District, Beijing

Phone: +86-10-62795302