Perception, Action & Cognition (PAC)

Summary/Description

The PAC program funds theoretically motivated research on a wide-range of topic areas related to typical human behavior with particular focus on perceptual, motor, and cognitive processes and their interactions. Central research topics for consideration by the program include (but are not limited to) vision, audition, haptics, attention, memory, written and spoken language, spatial cognition, motor control, categorization, reasoning, and concept formation. Of particular interest are emerging areas, such as the interaction of sleep or emotion with cognitive or perceptual processes, epigenetics of cognition, computational models of cognition, and cross-modal and multimodal processing. The program welcomes a wide range of perspectives, such as individual differences, symbolic and neural-inspired computation, ecological approaches, genetics and epigenetics, nonlinear dynamics and complex systems, and a variety of methodologies spanning the range of experimentation and modeling. The PAC program is open to co-review of proposals submitted to other programs both within the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Directorate and across other directorates.

Note: Proposals may be returned without review if the major focus is 1) the organization of neural activity or brain networks; 2) understanding clinical populations; or 3) non-human animals without a clear and direct impact on our understanding of human perception, action, or cognition. Investigators are encouraged to send the program director a one-page summary of the proposed research before submitting a proposal, in order to determine its appropriateness for the PAC program.

Eligibility

• Established Investigator