Metastability and Eye Movements: A Dynamical‑Systems Interpretation

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  1. Why metastability is a natural language for gaze behavior The idea that perception, attention, and neural activity evolve through transiently stable states has deep roots in cognitive science and neuroscience. Concepts such as attractors , basins , noise‑induced transitions , and escape times appear in work on perceptual switching, decision‑making, and neural population dynamics (Kelso, 1995; Rabinovich et al., 2008; Deco & Jirsa, 2012). Eye movements, especially the alternation between fixations and saccades ,   fit remarkably well into this metastable picture. The Freidlin–Wentzell theory of rare events (Freidlin & Wentzell, 2012) provides a rigorous mathematical language for these intuitions. 2. Fixations as metastable states  Consider the gaze position X t as the state of a stochastic dynamical system. During a fixation the  gaze remains confined to a small region, microsaccades and noise generate small fluctuations, and the gaze tends to return...
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Statistics: the basic tool of scientific research

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Complexity is an ubiquitous condition. We all make decisions of varying importance every day, so one may find strange that decision making involves rather sophisticated mechanisms. However, studies have shown that most people are much poorer at decision making than they think. The understanding of the decision making processes has been the aim of scientific research for many years. 


Decision making rules act not only at a macro-level, whose results we can observe  as economic aggregates, but take a major role also at the micro-level in terms of interactions among neuronal populations. 
In both cases the comprehension of the phenomena relies on robust computational approach. In this sense, statistics offers the tools for modelling and understanding  economic (i.e., social) behaviors and neuronal activities. 

This space is addressed to general and specific topics of statistics, economics, neuroscience, neuroeconomics. Theoretical and computational issues, as well as news, recensions of papers and books, will be promoted. Suggestions and contributions from the readers will be appreciated, since by sharing opinions, facts or ideas may improve the research.

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