Federal Project Grant Award Summary

The National Science Foundation's Office of Multidisciplinary Activities (CFDA 47.075) awarded a $1.64 million Project Grant to the Research Foundation of the City University of New York, effective July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2030, to conduct research on semantic information prediction across saccadic eye movements. The project will generate scientific outputs including neural recordings and behavioral data from human and non-human primate subjects viewing natural images and videos, computational models of biological vision systems, and peer-reviewed publications advancing understanding of how the brain integrates high-level semantic meaning across multiple eye movements. The research will employ intracranial and scalp neurophysiological recordings, cortical inactivation techniques in primates, and computational modeling to test mechanisms underlying semantic prediction during free-viewing tasks.

Beyond direct research outputs, the grant will produce open-access neural datasets for the scientific community and provide interdisciplinary training for postdoctoral researchers and graduate students in computational neuroscience and vision science. The project's findings are expected to inform development of more efficient artificial intelligence systems by elucidating how biological visual systems leverage recurrent processing and self-supervised learning mechanisms to maintain adaptive behavior. All research will be conducted at City College in New York, NY.