Patrick Wilken
Encyclopedia
Patrick Wilken is an editor at Cell Press
in Cambridge
, Massachusetts
, in the United States.
He completed his doctoral studies at the University of Melbourne
in 2001 under the supervision of Jason Mattingley and William Webster, where he developed models of visual short-term memory. He subsequently worked for three years as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Christof Koch
at the California Institute of Technology
, and then for two years as a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Jochen Braun, at Otto-von-Guericke University of Magdeburg.
His primary research interest was limits in information processing within high-level vision. He argued along with his collaborator Wei Ji Ma that the capacity limits commonly seen in visual short term memory and change blindness
are caused, not by a high-level bottleneck in the number items that can be attended and/or stored in memory, but by an increase in neuronal noise
in stimulus representations as complexity of visual information increases.
He has been active in the promotion of consciousness
as an area of academic study since the early 1990s. In 1992, he founded the electronic journal Psyche
, which in addition to publishing peer-reviewed papers and book reviews, acted as an online forum for discussion of consciousness studies via its lively mailing list Psyche-D. He acted as editor-in-chief of the journal until 2002, when he handed over executive editorship to the philosopher Tim Bayne.
After attending the first Towards a science of consciousness meeting in Tucson in 1994, he promoted the idea of setting up a professional organization to organize future consciousness conferences. This idea grew into the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness
. He has been active in the organization in various ways, including being a key organizer (along with William Banks) of both the first meeting of the association in 1997, and the most recent meetings organized with Christof Koch
at Caltech 2005 and Geraint Rees
in Oxford in 2006. He has sat on the Board of the ASSC since its foundation, and in 2002 took over from David Chalmers
as its chair; later being appointed its first executive director. In 2007, to avoid possible conflict of interest issues associated with his new appointment at Cell Press, he stepped down both as Director and from the Board of the ASSC.
He current position in Cell Press is Content Development editor for the journals Neuron
, Trends in Cognitive Sciences and Trends in Neurosciences. In addition, he is an editor of an encyclopedia of consciousness studies, The Oxford Companion to Consciousness, with Tim Bayne and Axel Cleeremans
, due to be published by Oxford University Press
in 2009.
Cell Press
Cell Press, an imprint of Elsevier, publishes biomedical journals, including Cell, Neuron, Immunity, Molecular Cell, Developmental Cell, Cancer Cell, Current Biology, Structure, Chemistry & Biology, Cell Metabolism, American Journal of Human Genetics, and new titles – Cell Host & Microbe and Cell...
in Cambridge
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
, in the United States.
He completed his doctoral studies at the University of Melbourne
University of Melbourne
The University of Melbourne is a public university located in Melbourne, Victoria. Founded in 1853, it is the second oldest university in Australia and the oldest in Victoria...
in 2001 under the supervision of Jason Mattingley and William Webster, where he developed models of visual short-term memory. He subsequently worked for three years as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Christof Koch
Christof Koch
Christof Koch is an American neuroscientist working on the neural basis of consciousness. He is the Lois and Victor Troendle Professor of Cognitive and Behavioral Biology at California Institute of Technology, where he has been since 1986...
at the California Institute of Technology
California Institute of Technology
The California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Caltech has six academic divisions with strong emphases on science and engineering...
, and then for two years as a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Jochen Braun, at Otto-von-Guericke University of Magdeburg.
His primary research interest was limits in information processing within high-level vision. He argued along with his collaborator Wei Ji Ma that the capacity limits commonly seen in visual short term memory and change blindness
Change blindness
In visual perception, change blindness is a normal phenomenon of the brain which show in light that the brain does not have a precise representation of the world but a lacunar one, made of partial details...
are caused, not by a high-level bottleneck in the number items that can be attended and/or stored in memory, but by an increase in neuronal noise
Neuronal noise
Neuronal noise is the term that describes random activity of neurons that presumably is not associated with encoding of behaviorally relevant variables. Many neuroscientists consider neuronal noise a factor that limits the capacity of information processing by the brain...
in stimulus representations as complexity of visual information increases.
He has been active in the promotion of consciousness
Consciousness
Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
as an area of academic study since the early 1990s. In 1992, he founded the electronic journal Psyche
Psyche (journal)
Psyche was a refereed electronic journal dedicated to supporting the interdisciplinary exploration of the nature of consciousness and its relation to the brain...
, which in addition to publishing peer-reviewed papers and book reviews, acted as an online forum for discussion of consciousness studies via its lively mailing list Psyche-D. He acted as editor-in-chief of the journal until 2002, when he handed over executive editorship to the philosopher Tim Bayne.
After attending the first Towards a science of consciousness meeting in Tucson in 1994, he promoted the idea of setting up a professional organization to organize future consciousness conferences. This idea grew into the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness
Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness
The Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness is a professional membership organization that aims to encourage research on consciousness in cognitive science, neuroscience, philosophy, and other relevant disciplines in the sciences and humanities, directed toward understanding the...
. He has been active in the organization in various ways, including being a key organizer (along with William Banks) of both the first meeting of the association in 1997, and the most recent meetings organized with Christof Koch
Christof Koch
Christof Koch is an American neuroscientist working on the neural basis of consciousness. He is the Lois and Victor Troendle Professor of Cognitive and Behavioral Biology at California Institute of Technology, where he has been since 1986...
at Caltech 2005 and Geraint Rees
Geraint Rees
Geraint Rees FMedSci is Director of the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and a Professor of Cognitive Neurology and Wellcome Trust Senior Clinical Fellow at University College London.-Biography:...
in Oxford in 2006. He has sat on the Board of the ASSC since its foundation, and in 2002 took over from David Chalmers
David Chalmers
David John Chalmers is an Australian philosopher specializing in the area of philosophy of mind and philosophy of language, whose recent work concerns verbal disputes. He is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Centre for Consciousness at the Australian National University...
as its chair; later being appointed its first executive director. In 2007, to avoid possible conflict of interest issues associated with his new appointment at Cell Press, he stepped down both as Director and from the Board of the ASSC.
He current position in Cell Press is Content Development editor for the journals Neuron
Neuron (journal)
Neuron is a neuroscience scientific journal published by Cell Press. It has been in continuous publication since 1988....
, Trends in Cognitive Sciences and Trends in Neurosciences. In addition, he is an editor of an encyclopedia of consciousness studies, The Oxford Companion to Consciousness, with Tim Bayne and Axel Cleeremans
Axel Cleeremans
Axel Cleeremans is a Research Director with the National Fund for Scientific Research and a professor of cognitive science with the Department of Psychology of the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels....
, due to be published by Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
in 2009.
Selected publications
- Reddy, L., Quiroga, R.Q., Wilken, P., Koch, C., Fried, I. (2006) A Single-Neuron Correlate of Change Detection and Change Blindness in the Human Medial Temporal Lobe. Current Biology, 16(20), 2066-2072
- Wilken P, Ma WJ (2004) A detection theory account of change detection. Journal of Vision, 4, 1120-1135.