Oliver Contier

Stephanstr. 1A · Leipzig, Germany

I am interested in how the human brain manages to represent the visual world we find ourselves in. Recent advances in cognitive neuroscience provide exciting tools to map the structure of the physical world to patterns of brain activity. This has put scientific models of mental representation within reach - yet our knowledge is still expanding and shifting constantly.

I am currently a PhD student in the Vision and Computational Cognition lab at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany. Along with this, I am also a doctoral candidate within the cross-institutional graduate program Max Planck School of Cognition.

Another focus of mine lies in using and contributing to frameworks that promote reproducibility, transparency, and general best practice in the analysis of neuroimaging data (specifically fMRI).

Beyond all things neuroscience, I love computers, books, jazz guitar, and my friendly dinosaur.



Current position

Vision and Computational Cognition lab

Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences · Leipzig, Germany
PhD student
since 2020

Max Planck School of Cognition

Doctoral candidate
since 2019

Education

Max Planck School of Cognition · orientation year

Lab rotations & e-learning

Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine at Jülich Research Center (Prof. Simon Eickhoff, Prof. Michael Hanke).

Vision and Computational Cognition Group, Max-Planck for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (Dr. Martin Hebart).

2019/20

Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg · Germany

M. Sc. Psychology
Cognitive Neuroscience Track

Thesis title: Temporal dynamics and effective connectivity in the distributed system of familiar face processing

Thesis supervisors: Prof. Michael Hanke, Prof. Yaroslav O. Halchenko

2018

Trier University · Germany

B. Sc. Psychology

Thesis title: Top-down modulation of feature integration by long-term memory

Thesis supervisors: Prof. Eva Walther, Dr. Katarina Blask

2014

Contributions

Peer-reviewed publications

Contier, O., Baker, C.I. & Hebart, M.N. (2024). Distributed representations of behaviour-derived object dimensions in the human visual system. Nature Human Behaviour. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-01980-y

Kalyani, A., Contier, O., Klemm, L., Azañon, E., Schreiber, S., Speck, O., Reichert, C., Kuehn, E. (2023). Reduced dimension stimulus decoding and column-based modeling reveal architectural differences of primary somatosensory finger maps between younger and older adults. NeuroImage, 283(120430). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.120430

Hebart, M.N.*, Contier, O.*, Teichmann, L.*, Rockter, A.H., Zheng, C.Y., Kidder, A., Corriveau, A., Vaziri-Pashkam, M., Baker, C.I. (2023). THINGS-data, a multimodal collection of large-scale datasets for investigating object representations in human brain and behavior. eLife. 12:e82580. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.82580

Fritz, T. H., Schütte, F., Steixner, A., Contier, O., Obrig, H., Villringer, A. (2019). Musical meaning modulates word acquisition. Brain and Language, 190(3). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandl.2018.12.001

Fritz, T. H., Bowling, D. L., Contier, O., Grant, J., Schneider, L., Lederer, A., Hoer, F., Busch, E., & Villringer, A. (2018). Musical agency during exercise decreases pain. Frontiers in Psychology, 8(2312). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02312

Sharifian, F., Contier, O., Preuschhof, C., & Pollmann, S. (2017). Reward modulation of contextual cueing: Repeated context overshadows repeated target location. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 79(7). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-017-1397-3

(* equal contribution)


Conference posters

Contier, O., Fujimori, S., Seeliger, K., Murty, N A. R., Hebart, M. (2023, May). Revealing interpretable object dimensions from a high-throughput model of the fusiform face area. Journal of Vision, 23(23), 5356. https://doi.org/10.1167/jov.23.9.5356

Stoinski, L. M., Contier, O., Konkle, T., Hebart, M. N. (2023, May). Revisiting the animacy, size, and curvature organization of human visual cortex. Journal of Vision, 23(23), 5072. https://doi.org/10.1167/jov.23.9.5072

St-Laurent, M., Pinsard, B., Contier, O., Seeliger, K., Borghesani, V., Boyle, J., Bellec, P., Hebart, M. N. (2023, May). cneuromod-things : a large-scale fMRI dataset for task- and data-driven assessment of object representation and visual memory recognition in the human brain. Journal of Vision, 23(23), 5424. https://doi.org/10.1167/jov.23.9.5424

Contier, O., Teichmann, L., Baker, C. I., Hebart, M. N. (2022, June). The THINGS initiative: a global large-scale effort for the representative study of objects in brains, behavior, and computational models. 47. Jahrestagung Psychologie und Gehirn 2022, Freiburg

Contier, O., Hebart, M. N. (2022, May). Distributed representation of behaviorally-relevant object dimensions in the human brain. Journal of Vision, 22(14), 3951. https://doi.org/10.1167/jov.22.14.3951

Contier, O., Hebart, M. N., Dickter, A. H., Teichmann, L., Kidder, A., Corriveau, A., Zheng, C., Vaziri-Pashkam, M., Baker, C. I. (2021, November). THINGS-fMRI/MEG: A densely sampled multimodal neuroimaging dataset of brain responses to a broad range of natural object images. Society for Neuroscience 50th Annual Meeting, Chicago.

Contier, O., Hebart, M. N., Dickter, A. H., Teichmann, L., Kidder, A., Corriveau, A., Zheng, C., Vaziri-Pashkam, M., Baker, C. I. (2021, September). THINGS-fMRI/MEG: A large-scale multimodal neuroimaging dataset of responses to natural object images. Journal of Vision, 21(9), 2633-2633. https://doi.org/10.1167/jov.21.9.2633

Kalyani, A., Contier, O., Reichert, C., Azañon, E., Kuehn, E. (2021, June). Shared response modelling of S1 digit representations in younger and older adults using 7T fMRI. Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM) 2021 Annual Meeting, Seoul.

Contier, O., Kuehn, E., Hanke, M. (2020, June). Shared response modelling of somatosensory digit representations using 7-t fMR. Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM) 2020 Annual Meeting, Montreal. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3894834

Contier, O., Visconti di Oleggio Castello, M., Gobbini, M. I., Halchenko, Y. O. (2018, June). Temporal dynamics and effective connectivity in the distributed system of familiar face processing. Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM) 2018 Annual Meeting, Singapore. http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.17076.96640


Awards

Open Science Prize, Interest Group for Open and Reproducible Research (IGOR) (Division of Biological and Neuropsychology, German Psychological Association), 2022