Contact Information
Email
Lab Website
Website
(615) 322-1780
531 Wilson
Research Area
Education
Ph.D., Harvard University, 1999
Curriculum Vitae
Current Courses
Psy 232, Mind and Brain
Psy 238, Social Cognition and Neuroscience
Advising
Frank Tong
Professor of Psychology
Frank Tong studies the neural bases of visual perception, attention, awareness, recognition, and working memory, by using behavioral and human brain imaging techniques. He is especially interested in the problems of brain reading and mind reading, that is, whether measures of a person's brain activity can be used to readout a person's visual thoughts. The overall goal of this research is to understand how visual representations in different brain areas mediate people's ability to consciously perceive and recognize basic visual features and complex objects. Specific research topics include binocular rivalry, perceptual filling-in, feature representations in visual cortex, object recognition, face perception, mental imagery, visual attention and consciousness. His research is supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.
Representative Publications
Tong, F., & Engel, S. A. (2001). Interocular rivalry revealed in the human cortical blind-spot representation. Nature, 411, 195-199.
Kamitani, Y., Tong, F. (2005). Decoding the visual and subjective contents of the human brain. Nature Neuroscience, 8, 679-685.
Meng, M., Remus, D. R., & Tong, F. (2005). Filling-in of visual phantoms in the human brain. Nature Neuroscience, 8, 1248-1254.
McKeeff, T. J., & Tong, F. (2007). The timing of perceptual decisions for ambiguous face stimuli in the human ventral visual cortex.
Cerebral Cortex, 17, 669-678.Pearson, J., Clifford, C., & Tong, F. (2008). The functional impact of mental imagery on conscious perception. Current Biology, 18, 982-986.
Harrison, S., & Tong, F. (2009). Decoding reveals the contents of visual working memory in early visual areas. Nature, 458, 632-635.
Jehee, J. F. M., Brady, D. K., & Tong, F. (2011). Attention improves encoding of task-relevant features in the human visual cortex. Journal of Neuroscience, 31, 8210–8219.
Tong, F., & Pratte, M. S. (2012). Decoding Patterns of Human Brain Activity. Annual Review in Psychology.
Honors
1999 - McDonnell-Pew Fellowship in Cognitive Neuroscience
2003 - Robert K. Root Preceptorship, Princeton University
2004 - Scientific American 50 Award
2006 - Young Investigator Award, Cognitive Neuroscience Society
2008 - Chancellor's Award for Research, Vanderbilt University
2009 - Young Investigator Award, Vision Sciences Society
2010 - Troland Research Award, National Academy of Sciences