Dr. Chapman's integration of eye-tracking and electroencephalography (EEG) with motion-tracking shows immense promise in providing a complete picture of the recursive loops that define sensorimotor behaviour
Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation assistant professor Craig Chapman joined 17 other young academics this past July as one of the first CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholars in Brain Mind & Consciousness.
The Azrieli Global Scholars program funds and supports researchers within five years of their first academic appointment. Dr. Chapman and his 17 colleagues will be able to access a wide network of world renowned researchers in their respective fields, expanding their own professional networks and gaining essential skills to help them become leaders in global research.
Members of the program's first cohort come from Austria, China, Israel, the United States and Canada.
Dr. Chapman shares his excitement on being named an Azriel Global Scholar, what this means to him and his research and his hopes for the next two years of the appointment.
Congratulations on being named an Azrieli Global Scholar in Brain, Mind & Consciousness. What does this mean for you as a young investigator and for your research?
Thanks! It is a great honor and opportunity to be part of this program. Really, what I think this means for me is that I get to spend the next two years in the academic fast lane - exchanging ideas and collaborating with the highest profile and most elite researchers in my field. Ultimately research is like any other avenue of work and networking with the right people is crucial to your success. Through the CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholars Program, I now get to expand my research network to include well-established and extremely well -respected, senior researchers that I would not have expected to be involved with until much later in my career. I will attend at least three annual meetings with CIFAR colleagues, which will be immensely valuable networking opportunities. Research is the ultimate collaborative endeavor and having the opportunity to work with some of the smartest people in the world on the topic of consciousness will enormously benefit the impact and quality of my work. This appointment also comes with some financial assistance which gives me the freedom to use those resources to improve the quality of my research.
Can you briefly describe your research project as it relates to the Azrieli Global Scholars Program?
The core question to the Azrieli program in Brain, Mind and Consciousness is where consciousness arises and what is it good for. My work is most related to the question of where consciousness comes from and whether it emerges instantaneously or gradually. I tackle this question from a unique perspective: Rather than asking how information becomes available to our conscious awareness, I ask instead about the fate of information when it fails to reach consciousness. Using a detailed analysis of movements, my lab is providing compelling evidence for a gradual emergence. Our integration of eye-tracking and electroencephalography (EEG) with motion-tracking shows immense promise in providing a complete picture of the recursive loops that define sensorimotor behaviour - from information acquisition, through neural signatures of processing, and ultimately to actions.
Most people think a decision ends once you start moving. I challenge that idea and argue that a decision doesn't end until the movement is complete. I use movement as a window into decision making and other thought processes, both unconscious and consciously accessible. Movement and thought are not separate; they are continuous, with movement dynamically reflecting ongoing thinking. This makes movement recording an exciting and powerful research tool for science and diagnostic tool for medicine.
What do you hope to achieve over the next two years of this scholars program?
There are really two main objectives I have for my two years. First, as I mentioned earlier, I want to use this opportunity to start some collaborative projects with the leaders in the study of consciousness. Any project is so enriched by bringing in collaborative partners and this program offers me a once in a lifetime chance to work with some of the very best researchers in the world. Second, CIFAR puts an emphasis not only on great research, but also on our role as science communicators, educators and advocates. Therefore, I am really looking forward to that component of this program - the evolution and growth of my science communication skills. We unfortunately live in a time where there is some skepticism toward science - as a passionate member of the science community, I think it is my job to share the incredible power of science with as many people as I can - from undergraduate education to public outreach. The CIFAR Global Scholars program will help me develop the skills necessary to make this important contribution.
How will the work being done in your ACELab correlate to your Azrieli Global Scholars research?
I'm hoping they become one and the same. That is, I am hoping that through future collaborations with the other members of the Azrieli program in Brain, Mind and Consciousness the research in my lab will be driven by the ideas and projects that come directly from my involvement as a Global Scholar.
You've mentioned that a lot of your work is around basic research. Can you explain what basic research is and why it's important this type of research is always happening?
In a recent Scientific American article regarding their opinion of the 2016 US election they state: "In one of the most powerful lines in American literature, Huck Finn says: 'It warn't so. I tried it.' " This strikes me as the most succinct declaration for why basic research is essential - we know things because we try them and see if they are true or not. Evidence based decision making is critical at every level of our lives - from our personal lives where we want to know reliable and trusted information about a school before choosing to attend or to send our children, to our governments, who need reliable and trusted information about the populace in order to make the right policy decisions. Without a fundamental trust in the facts of a situation, any decision is rendered almost pointless. This is precisely where basic science comes in - ultimately all facts are just additions to or modifications of facts that came before them. In most domains, basic science provides the bedrock of facts upon which the rest of knowledge is built. Many times, this means that any individual contribution to the basic science edifice seems insignificant - what is one rock to a mountain. But, when the collection of facts becomes substantial, we all get to climb the mountain, stand taller and see farther.
So basic science is just that - asking very simple questions, usually in a very specific domain in the hopes of adding one small grain of new knowledge to the world. Then, you take that new knowledge, ask a new question and add one more grain again. With millions of researchers around the world it is amazing how fast these contributions add up. We have basic science to thank for almost every technological advance we now rely on and take for granted - from computers and smartphones to advanced medical imaging. None of these would have been possible without millions of individual pieces of evidence, provided by basic science, eventually coalescing into some new idea or breakthrough.
How involved are your graduate and undergraduate student in your research and what, if any role, will they play in your work with the scholars program?
The not so hidden secret of research is that all of it actually gets conducted by our talented and hardworking students. So, the question isn't really how involved my students are in my research, but rather, how involved am I in theirs. I've been very fortunate to have four graduate talented young researchers, Nathan Wispinski, Jennifer Bertrand, Ewen Lavoie and Jeff Sawalha, join me as my first cohort of MSc students. As with any good collaboration, my ideas about potential research questions get combined with theirs to produce the actual research direction of my lab. I am equally fortunate to have a number of talented undergraduate volunteers and research assistants who have even further expanded the research potential of the ACELab. I actually think engaging undergraduates in research is one of the most important parts of my job - I certainly wish I had known even sooner when I was an undergraduate what research was all about and how I could get involved. I am very lucky in the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation (FPER) and through my affiliation with the Neuroscience and Mental Health Institute and my collaborations with the Department of Psychology to have many programs (like the FPER practicums, Neuroscience research courses and Psychology directed studies) that make it easy to find motivated undergraduates to work with me on research questions.
As for what specific role they will play in my affiliation with the global scholars program - I'm not sure I can exactly predict. Inasmuch as the program will definitely shape some of my fundamental research questions, then all of my students will in turn be influenced by whatever direction we all decide to head in. More tangibly, I'm hopeful that the program will enable my graduate students to further their research networks and develop their research skills - I plan to use some of the financial assistance I received from CIFAR to provide learning opportunities for all myself and my students, perhaps including bringing in some guest researchers or attending conferences or special meetings.
Are you taking any new graduate or undergraduate student on at this time? If so, what is the best way to contact you and what type of opportunities can students - namely undergraduate students - are available?
I always consider taking new graduate and undergraduate students who are motivated and fascinated by research. But, it has to be a good fit for everyone - not every student is a researcher, and not every researcher is interested in what I do. That being said, the best way to see what I do and to contact me is to check out the ACELab website and / or send me an email.