Spatial consequences of bridging the saccadic gap

We report six experiments suggesting that conscious perception is actively redrafted to take account of events both before and after the event that is reported. When observers saccade to a stationary object they overestimate its duration, as if the brain were filling in the saccadic gap with the post-saccadic image. We first demonstrate that this illusion holds for moving objects, implying that the perception of time, velocity, and distance traveled become discrepant. We then show that this discrepancy is partially resolved up to 500 ms after a saccade: the perceived offset position of a post-saccadic moving stimulus shows a greater forward mislocalization when pursued after a saccade than during pursuit alone. These data are consistent with the idea that the temporal bias is resolved by the subsequent spatial adjustment to provide a percept that is coherent in its gist but inconsistent in its detail

Copying and Evolution of Neuronal Topology

We propose a mechanism for copying of neuronal networks that is of considerable interest for neuroscience for it suggests a neuronal basis for causal inference, function copying, and natural selection within the human brain. To date, no model of neuronal topology copying exists. We present three increasingly sophisticated mechanisms to demonstrate how topographic map formation coupled with Spike-Time Dependent Plasticity (STDP) can copy neuronal topology motifs. Fidelity is improved by error correction and activity-reverberation limitation. The high-fidelity topology-copying operator is used to evolve neuronal topologies. Possible roles for neuronal natural selection are discussed

Understanding internal migration in Britain at the start of the 21st century

Along with changes in fertility, mortality and international migration, internal migration acts to affect population change in almost all areas of Britain. As well as changing the numbers of people in localities it will alter the structure and composition of populations, impacting upon the planning and allocation of resources to local communities. In order to plan effectively, knowledge of the flows of people within the country is essential, but with almost ten percent of the population of Britain changing their permanent place of residence every year, a complex system of flows between a multitude of origins and destinations is presented. There is a long history of studying internal migration in Britain; a history which owes much to the system of flows continually evolving. Monitoring this system can be problematic as unlike births and deaths, there is no compulsory mechanism to record the movements of people within the country. Data are accessed from different sources, each with their own idiosyncrasies which pose challenges for those wishing to build a complete understanding of the flows taking place. This thesis tackles the problem of building an understanding of internal migration in Britain where data are limited and patterns and processes complex. New methods for estimating incomplete data are presented, along with new techniques for analysing available datasets. Central to the understanding of internal migration patterns is the association of types of migrant with origin and destination areas; therefore one of the central contributions of this piece of work is the development of a new internal migration-based geodemographic area classification framework, designed to both assist in the analysis of internal migration data from the census used to build it and to offer a parsimonious system for the analysis of temporally rich but attribute poor non-census datasets