Marius Peelen

Main Interests

I use fMRI and TMS to study the neural mechanisms underlying visual perception and attention. One major focus is on the role of attention in the processing of objects in naturalistic scenes. Another focus is on how the brain represents socially relevant stimuli, such as faces and bodies.

Current collaborations

Yanchao Bi (Beijing Normal University, China)
Alfonso Caramazza (Harvard University, USA and CIMeC, Italy)
Paul Downing (Bangor University, UK)
Sabine Kastner (Princeton University, USA)

Last publications

Bracci S, Cavina-Pratesi C, Ietswaart M, Caramazza A, Peelen MV (in press). Closely overlapping responses to tools and hands in left lateral occipitotemporal cortex. Journal of Neurophysiology

Van Koningsbruggen MG, Peelen MV, Davis E, Rafal RD (in press). Neural control of voluntary eye closure: a case study and an fMRI investigation of blinking and winking. Behavioural Neurology

Stein T, Peelen MV, Sterzer P (2011). Adults’ awareness of faces follows newborns’ looking preferences. PLoS ONE 6:e29361

Downing PE, Peelen MV (2011). The role of occipitotemporal body-selective regions in person perception. Cognitive Neuroscience 2:186-226

Peelen MV, Kastner S (2011). Is that a bathtub in your kitchen? Nature Neuroscience (News and Views) 14:1224-1226

Peelen MV, Kastner S (2011). A neural basis for real-world visual search in human occipitotemporal cortex. PNAS 108:12125-12130.

Willms JL, Shapiro KA, Peelen MV, Pajtas PE, Costa A, Moo LR, Caramazza A (2011). Language-invariant verb processing regions in Spanish-English bilinguals. NeuroImage 57:251-261

Stein T, Senju A, Peelen MV, Sterzer P (2011). Eye contact facilitates awareness of faces during interocular suppression. Cognition 119:307-311

Peelen MV, Atkinson AP, Vuilleumier P (2010). Supramodal representations of perceived emotions in the human brain. Journal of Neuroscience 30:10127-10134

Peelen MV, Caramazza A (2010). What body parts reveal about the organization of the brain. Neuron (Preview) 68:331-333

Peelen MV, Rogers J, Wing AM, Downing PE, Bracewell RM (2010). Unitary perception: integrating moving tactile inputs from anatomically adjacent and non-adjacent digits. Experimental Brain Research 204:457-464

Bach P, Peelen MV, Tipper SP (2010). On the role of object information in action observation: an fMRI study. Cerebral Cortex 20:2798-2809

Bracci S, Ietswaart M, Peelen MV, Cavina-Pratesi C (2010). Dissociable neural responses to hands and non-hand body parts in human left extrastriate visual cortex. Journal of Neurophysiology 103:3389-3397

Stein T, Peelen MV, Funk J, Seidl KN (2010). The fearful-face advantage is modulated by task demands: evidence from the attentional blink. Emotion 10:136-140

Willems RM, Peelen MV, Hagoort P (2010). Cerebral lateralization of face-selective and body-selective visual areas depends on handedness. Cerebral Cortex 20:1719-1725

Peelen MV, Fei-Fei L, Kastner S (2009). Neural mechanisms of rapid natural scene categorization in human visual cortex. Nature 460:94-97

Peelen MV, Glaser B, Vuilleumier P, Eliez S (2009). Differential development of selectivity for faces and bodies in the fusiform gyrus. Developmental Science 12:F16-25

Peelen MV, Lucas N, Mayer E, Vuilleumier P (2009). Emotional attention in acquired prosopagnosia. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 4:268-277

Peelen MV, Kastner S (2009). A nonvisual look at the functional organization of visual cortex. Neuron (Preview) 63:284-286