Hinze is a Senior Research Fellow at the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne. He is also the founder and principal investigator at the Time in Brain and Behaviour Laboratory.
His primary research interests are in visual time perception. The lab investigates time in the brain, from a neural, cognitive and behavioural perspective by using computational methods and neuroimaging techniques – with a focus on multivariate EEG decoding as well as psychophysical and behavioural approaches.
Some examples of current projects include:
• Predicting the present – our brains need time to process sensory input, so our conscious experience of the world is outdated by the time we perceive it. Using prediction as a possible explanation for how we compensate for this delay, the lab uses EEG recordings to study the role of anticipatory neural activity.
• Shortcuts to consciousness – looking at the role of ‘fast-tracking’ and assumptions, this project uses visual illusions to understand the shortcuts taken by the brain when compensating of its own delays.
• When predictions fail ¬– the brain uses predictive strategies to compensate for its own delays. But sometimes the predictions fail. Using a combination of multivariate EEG decoding techniques, this project aims to understand how the brain corrects its failed predictions.
His recent publication Predictive coding with neural transmission delays: a real-time temporal alignment hypothesis (Hogendoorn, H. & Burkitt, A.N. 2019) explains how predictive coding mechanisms cause different brain areas to align in time, despite varying delays, and how cortical hierarchies function in real-time.