CV

Education

• Ph.D. Candidate, Information Sciences (Cognitive Neuroscience / Vision Science), Tohoku University, Japan, Apr 2023 – Mar 2026 (expected)
  • Thesis: Exploring Brain Mechanisms of Self-Initiated Attention Shift: Simultaneous Recording of EEG and Eye Movements
  • Advisors: Prof. Satoshi Shioiri, Prof. Shuichi Sakamoto, Assoc. Prof. Chia-huei Tseng
  • Visual Cognition and Systems Laboratory
• Visiting PhD Scholar, Harvard Medical School / Massachusetts General Hospital, Aug 2024 – Jan 2025
  • Department of Neurology, MGH
  • Training in sEEG, hyperscanning, neural mechanisms of speech and interactive communication
  • Advisors: Instructor Jing (Jill) Cai, Prof. Sydney S. Cash
• M.S., Information Sciences, Tohoku University, Japan, Apr 2021 – Mar 2023
  • Visual Cognition and Systems Laboratory
  • Advisors: Prof. Satoshi Shioiri, Assoc. Prof. Chia-huei Tseng
• B.Eng., Electronic and Information Engineering (Automation), Tongji University, China, Sep 2016 – Jul 2020
  • GPA: 4.15/5.0 (Top 30%)

Research Interests

• Neural–AI alignment: comparing representations in EEG/fMRI and large language/vision models
• Brain-inspired AI: using cognitive and neural principles to optimize AI architectures
• Visual attention and self-initiated attentional control
• Eye movement–EEG integration (gaze-contingent paradigms; saccades & microsaccades)
• Decision-related neural dynamics and computational modeling (accumulation-to-bound, time–frequency analysis)
• Neural decoding (EEG, sEEG, MEG, hyperscanning)

Publications

WMF-AM: Probing LLM Working Memory via Depth-Parameterized Cumulative State Tracking

Hou, D., Jiang, L., Li, D., Li, Z., Lin, F., & Yamada, K. D. (2026). WMF-AM: Probing LLM Working Memory via Depth-Parameterized Cumulative State Tracking. arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.27343.

Physics-Aware Video Instance Removal Benchmark

Li, Z., Chen, X., Jiang, L., Hou, D., Lin, F., Yamada, K., Gao, X., & Tu, Z. (2026). Physics-Aware Video Instance Removal Benchmark. CVPR 2026 Workshop VGBE.

Task-constrained self-initiated attention shifts are indexed by frontal-midline theta ramping

Hou, D., Sun, S., Hatori, Y., Tseng, C., & Shioiri, S. (2025). Task-constrained self-initiated attention shifts are indexed by frontal-midline theta ramping. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.

EEG Activity Over Ipsilateral and Contralateral M1 During Simple and Complex Hand Tasks: Variations with Motor Learning

Zhao, J., Wang, Y., Hou, D., Négyesi, J., Qiu, D. L., & Nagatomi, R. (2025). EEG activity over ipsilateral and contralateral M1 during simple and complex hand tasks: Variations with motor learning. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 19, 1681250.

Commonality of neuronal coherence for motor skill acquisition and interlimb transfer

Zhao, J., Wang, Y., Hou, D., Sun, S., Négyesi, J., Inada, H., Shioiri, S., & Nagatomi, R. (2025). Commonality of neuronal coherence for motor skill acquisition and interlimb transfer. Scientific Reports, 15(1), 26276.

Talks & Presentations

自発的注意シフトの脳内メカニズムに関するデータ駆動型研究

December 15, 2025

Oral presentation at ヒューマン情報処理研究会 (HIP), Sendai, Japan

機械学習による自発的注意シフト予兆の脳活動解析

December 15, 2025

Oral presentation at ヒューマン情報処理研究会 (HIP), Sendai, Japan

自由観察中の自発的注意シフトに先立つ脳活動の機械学習的解析

September 10, 2025

Poster presentation at 日本視覚学会 2025年夏季大会, Morioka, Japan

EEG-Based Decoding of Voluntary Attentional Control: Differentiating Self-Initiated Shifts in a Visual Search Paradigm

June 20, 2025

Poster presentation at EPC & APCV Joint Meeting 2025 — UNSW Conferences, Sydney, Australia

Attention guides reward-based decision-making as measured by SSVEPs

October 09, 2024

Poster presentation at Society for Neuroscience (SfN) Annual Meeting 2024, Chicago, IL, USA

Task complexity-related neurophysiological dynamics underlying visuomotor skill learning and interlimb transfer

October 09, 2024

Poster presentation at Society for Neuroscience (SfN) Annual Meeting 2024, Chicago, IL, USA

Exploring Mechanisms of Self-initiated Attention Shifts: Analysis of Theta Wave

July 12, 2024

Poster presentation at The 16th Asia Pacific Conference on Vision (APCV 2024), Singapore

Exploring Mechanisms of Self-initiated Attention Shifts – Analysis of Alpha Wave

July 10, 2024

Oral presentation at The 16th Asia Pacific Conference on Vision (APCV 2024), Singapore

Criticality-State-Based Mechanism for Self-Initiated Attention

September 19, 2023

Poster presentation at 日本視覚学会 2023年夏季大会, Kanazawa, Japan

Neural activities preceding self-initiated attention

August 28, 2023

Poster presentation at European Conference on Visual Perception (ECVP 2023), Paphos, Cyprus

Self-initiation of attentional shift during visual search

August 27, 2023

Oral presentation at European Conference on Visual Perception (ECVP 2023), Paphos, Cyprus

Investigation of Self-initiated Attention by EEG Measurements

January 18, 2023

Poster presentation (English) at 日本視覚学会 2023年冬季大会, Tokyo, Japan

Analysis of EEG measures for self-initiated attention

September 05, 2022

Oral presentation at 日本視覚学会 2022年夏季大会, Kanazawa, Japan

Critical brain states related with self-initiated attentional shift

May 15, 2022

Talk at Vision Sciences Society (VSS) Annual Meeting 2022, St. Pete Beach, FL, USA

Searching indexes for self-initiated attention shift

January 19, 2022

Poster presentation (English) at 日本視覚学会 2022年冬季大会, Japan

Investigation of critical brain states to initiate attentional shift

October 01, 2021

Poster presentation at IEICE Technical Report, Japan

Teaching

Machine Learning Basics (Instructor)

Teaching Assistant

Fellowships & Awards

• Kaggle Expert — Bronze Medal, CSIRO Image2Biomass Prediction (354/3803), 2026
• JSPS DC2 Research Fellowship, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Apr 2025 –
• Kaggle Bronze Medal — Santa 2024: The Perplexity Permutation Puzzle (148/1514), Feb 2025
• KAKENHI Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A), 自発的脳機能の神経基盤理解 (PI: Prof. Satoshi Shioiri), 2024 – 2028
• Best Presentation Award (ベストプレゼンテーション賞), 32nd Doctoral Student Presentation, Tohoku University, Dec 2024
• ECVP Student Travel Award, European Conference on Visual Perception, Aug 2023
• JST Next Generation Researcher Challenging Research Program (挑戦的研究支援プロジェクト), Tohoku University, 2023 – 2025
• Tohoku University GPDS Research Assistant (東北大学データ科学国際共同大学院プログラム生 & Research Assistant), Apr 2022 –
• Kamei Memorial Foundation Scholarship for International Students (公益財団法人亀井記念財団外国人留学生奨学生), Apr 2021 – Mar 2023
• Tongji University Undergraduate Entrance Scholarship, Sep 2016

Skills

• Neuroimaging & Psychophysics: EEG/ERP, Eye-tracking, sEEG, Gaze-contingent paradigms, Visual psychophysics
• Computational Methods: Time-frequency analysis, Neural decoding (MVPA), Accumulation-to-bound modeling, Machine learning
• Programming: Python, MATLAB, R, MNE-Python, EEGLab

Languages

• Chinese (Mandarin): Native or bilingual proficiency
• English: Professional working proficiency (TOEIC 910/990, TOEFL 90/120)
• Japanese: Limited working proficiency (JLPT N2)

Service

Peer Reviewer:

• Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation
• Scientific Reports
• Discover Neuroscience
• European Conference on Machine Learning and Principles and Practice of Knowledge Discovery in Databases (ECML PKDD 2026)
• International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN)