APL-Lab
Action, Perception, and Learning Lab

About The Lab

Action, Perception and Learning (APL) Lab is affiliated with the School of Psychology at South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China. We are also affiliated with two key laboratories of the Ministry of Education, China, 1) Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences (South China Normal University), Ministry of Education; and 2) Philosophy and Social Science Laboratory of Reading and Development in Children and Adolescents (South China Normal University), Ministry of Education.

The lab is led by Dr. Juan Chen, who obtained her bachelor degree in mathematics in Beijing Normal University, Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience at Peking University (supervised by Dr. Fang Fang), and Post-doctoral training in the Brain and Mind Institute at the University of Western Ontario (or Western University) in Canada under the supervision of Dr. Melvyn A Goodale and Dr. Jody Culham.

We use multiple techniques including psychophysics, eye tracking, motor tracking, brain imaging (EEG, fMRI, MEG), to study the behavioral properties and neural mechanisms of sensory perception (visual perception, haptic perception, proprioception etc) and hand actions (reaching, grasping, tool use, obstacle avoidance, etc), and the interaction between perception and action. Under these two big topics, we focus on the size and distance representation, multisensory integration and learning in perception and action tasks. Our research has strong practicality and can be widely combined with robotics and artificial intelligence.

Laboratory location figure is shown below

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News

  • Members attended the 14 th Annual Meeting of Chinese Neuroscience Society in Chongqing.

  • Dr. Gao Jie received an award in the 2022 National Forum for Outstanding Doctoral Students in Psychology.

Principle Investigator

Dr. Juan Chen (陈娟) attained her bachelor’s degree in mathematics in Beijing Normal University, and her Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience in Peking University (supervised by Dr. Fang Fang), and received post-doctoral training in the Brain and Mind Institute at the University of Western Ontario (or Western University) in Canada working with Dr. Melvyn A Goodale and Dr. Jody Culham. She also visited the School of Optometry and Vision Science (Dr. Ben Thompson’s Lab) at the University of Waterloo, Canada, and the Movement Disorders Research and Rehabilitation Centre (Dr. Michael Cinelli’s Lab) at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada in 2019.

Click here to view her CV.

PhD students

Jie Gao (高洁) received her Master’s degree of Psychometrics from South China Normal University, and Bachelor's degree of Psychology from Zhengzhou University. Integrating neuroscience techniques (e.g., fMRI, EEG), computational modeling, she aims to explore the neurocognitive mechanism of action learning and perceptual learning.

Email: jiegao@m.scnu.edu.cn

Zhiqing Deng (邓芷晴) received her Master's degree of Applied Psychology from South China Normal University. She is interested in the representation of toolness and shape during tool processing. Moreover, with neuroscience techniques (e.g., fMRI, MEG), she hopes to unveil the neural mechanism of tool use.

Email: zhiqingdeng@m.scnu.edu.cn

Zina Li (李自娜) received her Master’s degree in computer science from South China Normal University.

Email: zina@m.scnu.edu.cn

Yuqing Zhao (赵雨晴) received her Master’s degree in psychology from Hangzhou Normal University.

Email: 2023010290@m.scnu.edu.cn

Master students

Fuying Zhu (朱福英) received her Bachelor's degree of Computer Science and Technology from Nanjing Tech University. She is going to explore the representation of object distance in the brain using fMRI.

Email：1543317210@qq.com

Gexiu Wang (王格修) graduated from Jinling Institute of Technology majoring in Mechanical Design manufacture and Automation. He is interested in the eye-hand coordination, vision and consciousness.

Email：wanggexiu@m.scnu.edu.cn

Jiantong Ye (叶健彤) graduated from Guangzhou University with major of psychology. Her interest lies in subthreshold perceptual learning.

Email：2022023757@m.scnu.edu.cn

Xiaoqian Liu (吴小钱) graduated from Fujian Medical University, majoring in applied psychology. She is interested in visual and haptic size.

Email：2022023793@m.scnu.edu.com

Yijin Wang (王仪瑾) received her Bachelor's degree of Computer Science and Technology from South China Normal University. She is interested in contiousness and tool using.

Email：Yjin_w@m.scnu.edu.cn

Yanli Wang (王艳丽) received her Bachelor's degree of psychology from ShanDong University.

Email：2023023798@m.scnu.edu.cn

Jinquan Wang (王金泉) received his Bachelor's degree of Business Management from Hangzhou Dianzi University.

Email：2023023835@m.scnu.edu.cn

Ruxiao Zhang (张如筱) received her Bachelor's degree of from Xiamen University.

Email：2023023810@m.scnu.edu.cn

Alumni

Undergraduate students

Visiting students

Research Interests

  • 1. Neural mechanism of perception (vision, hearing, touch, proprioception, etc.) and action (grasping, pointing, tool use, etc.)
  • 2. Multisensory integration during perception and action
  • 3. Perception and action training and brain plasticity
  • 4. Auditory, tactile, proprioception and action system for the blind
  • 5. Development of Children's perception and action system
  • 6. Decoding of action intention and action features.

Research methods

  • Psychophysics
  • Motor tracking
  • Eye tracking
  • EEG
  • FMRI
  • MEG
  • Patient research

Equipment

  • NDI Optotrak certus

  • EEG

Video and Slides

Effects of Action planning on surround suppression

Participate our research

To make our research more effective in helping patients, we are recruiting subjects with symptoms such as ventral impairment, disturbance of consciousness, visual loss of certification, object recognition disorder, optic ataxia and anomia. If you have the above symptoms and are willing to participate in experimental research, please contact us at SCNU_ChenLab@outlook.com

Peer-reviewed articles

  • 1. Zhang, C., Wang, C., Deng, Z., Gao, J., Ding, Z., & Chen, J*. (2023). Hand copy performance of young children and the illiterate, semi-illiterate, and literate adults. Current Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-05009-x Download
  • 2. Chen, J#., Paciocco, J. U.#, Deng. Z, Culham, J. C., Human neuroimaging reveals differences in activation and connectivity between real and pantomimed tool use. (accepted) Journal of Neuroscience, 2023 Download
  • 3. Klein, L. K., Maiello, G., Stubbs, K., Proklova, D., Chen, J., Paulun, V. C., Culham, J. C., & Fleming, R. W. (2023). Distinct neural components of visually guided grasping during planning and execution. The Journal of Neuroscience, JN-RM-0335-0323. https://doi.org/10.1523/jneurosci.0335-23.2023 Download
  • 4. Deng, Z., Xie, W., Zhang, C., Wang, C., Zhu, F., Xie, R., and Chen, J. (2023) Development of the mirror-image sensitivity for different object categories - evidence from the mirror cost of object images in children and adults. Journal of Vision. (Accepted). Download
  • 5. Wang, C., Gao, J., Deng, Z., Zhang, Y., Zheng, C., Liu, X., Sperandio, I., & Chen, J. (2022). Extracurricular sports activities modify the proprioceptive map in children aged 5–8 years. Scientific Reports, 12. Download
  • 6. Sun, C., Chen, J., Chen, Y., & Tang, R. (2021). The influence of induced emotions on distance and size perception and on the grip scaling during grasping. Frontiers in Psychology, 4062. Download
  • 7. Gao, J., Ko, A., Yabe, Y., Goodale, M. A., & Chen, J#. (2020). Pupil size is modulated by the size of equal-luminance gratings. Journal of Vision, 20(8), 4-4. Download
  • 8. Zhang, X., Li, H., Xie, T., Liu, Y., Chen, J., & Long, J. (2020). Movement speed effects on beta-band oscillations in sensorimotor cortex during voluntary activity. Journal of Neurophysiology, 124(2), 352-359. Download
  • 9. Chen, X., Chen, J., Cheng, G., & Gong, T. (2020). Topics and trends in artificial intelligence assisted human brain research. PLOS ONE, 15(4), e0231192. Download
  • 10. Chen, J., Sperandio, I., Molly, H., & Goodale, M. A. (in press). Changing the real viewing distance reveals the temporal evolution of size constancy in visual cortex. Current Biology (co-Corresponding author). Download
  • 11. Chen, J., Sperandio, I., & Goodale, M. A. (2018). Proprioceptive Distance Cues Restore Perfect Size Constancy in Grasping, but Not Perception, When Vision Is Limited. Current Biology, 28, 1-6. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2018.01.076 (co-Corresponding author). Download
  • 12. Freud, E., Macdonald, S. N., Chen, J., Quinlan, D. J., Goodale, M. A., & Culham, J. C. (2018). Getting a grip on reality: Grasping movements directed to real objects and images rely on dissociable neural representations. Cortex, 98, 34-48. doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2017.02.020. Download
  • 13. Chen, J., Snow, J. C., Culham, J. C., & Goodale, M. A. (2018). What Role Does “Elongation” Play in “Tool-Specific” Activation and Connectivity in the Dorsal and Ventral Visual Streams? Cerebral Cortex, 28(4), 1117-1131. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhx017 (Corresponding author). Download
  • 14. Mundinano, I.-C., Chen, J., de Souza, M., Sarossy, M. G., Joanisse, M. F., Goodale, M. A., & Bourne, J. A. (2017). More than blindsight: Case report of a child with extraordinary visual capacity following perinatal bilateral occipital lobe injury. Neuropsychologia. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.11.017. Download
  • 15. Chen, J., Yu, Q., Zhu, Z., Peng, Y., & Fang, F. (2016). Spatial summation revealed in the earliest visual evoked component C1 and the effect of attention on its linearity. Journal of neurophysiology, 115(1), 500-509. Download
  • 16. Chen, J., Jayawardena, S., & Goodale, M. A. (2015). The effects of shape crowding on grasping. Journal of vision, 15(3), 6-6. (Corresponding author). Download
  • 17. Chen, J., Sperandio, I., & Goodale, M. A. (2015). Differences in the effects of crowding on size perception and grip scaling in densely cluttered 3-d scenes. Psychological science, 26(1), 58-69. (Co-corresponding author). Download
  • 18. Chen, J., He, Y., Zhu, Z., Zhou, T., Peng, Y., Zhang, X., & Fang, F. (2014). Attention-dependent early cortical suppression contributes to crowding. The Journal of Neuroscience, 34(32), 10465-10474. Download
  • 19. Bi, T.*, Chen, J.*, Zhou, T., He, Y., & Fang, F. (2014). Function and structure of human left fusiform cortex are closely associated with perceptual learning of faces. Current Biology, 24(2), 222-227. (*co-first author). Download
  • 20. Yang, H., Shen, J., Chen, J., & Fang, F. (2011). Face adaptation improves gender discrimination. Vision research, 51(1), 105-110. Download
  • 21. Chen, J., Zhou, T., Yang, H., & Fang, F. (2010). Cortical dynamics underlying face completion in human visual system. The Journal of Neuroscience, 30(49), 16692-16698. Download
  • 22. Chen, J.*, Yang, H.*, Wang, A., & Fang, F. (2010). Perceptual consequences of face viewpoint adaptation: Face viewpoint aftereffect, changes of differential sensitivity to face view, and their relationship. Journal of Vision, 10(3), 12-12. (*co-first author). Download
  • 23. Bi, T., Su, J., Chen, J., & Fang, F. (2009). The role of gaze direction in face viewpoint aftereffect. Vision research, 49(18), 2322-2327. Download
  • 24. Chen, J., Liu, B., Chen, B., & Fang, F. (2009). Time course of amodal completion in face perception. Vision research, 49(7), 752-758. Download

Collaborators

Helpful resources

Opportunities

The lab is seeking Postdoc Research Fellows, PhD students, Master students from Psychology, Math, Physics, Computer Science, Medicine, Biology, Engineer, etc.

Undergraduate students are also welcome to work as research assistants in the lab.

Collaborations

Collaborations from hospitals and industry are welcomed.

Contact address

School of psychology, South China Normal University, 55 Zhongshan Avenue, West, Tianhe District, Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province, China

Affilication