SPRING 2009
The 2009 edition of this course offers an advanced survey of selected topics of current interest in the neural and computational modeling of mammalian vision. This year's topics include motion perception, object recognition, and color. Some classes will be held at laboratories of nearby institutions. Students are expected to have a sufficient interdisciplinary grounding in the fundamentals of computational modeling of mammalian vision to read primary research sources extensively. A term project that combines a problem statement, literature review, and either (1) simulation of a model or (2) a design for a psychophysical experiment is required.
Answers to FREQUENTLY-ASKED QUESTIONS about CN730
Information for GUEST SPEAKERS
Dates of DELIVERABLES for student research reports
Click
on a date to go directly to a summary of that week's class, including assigned
readings. Links to guest speakers' home pages, weekly topics, and a list of
readings will also be found there, though these will be updated in real time
in the course of the semester.
Jan 15 Rajeev Raizada
Jan 29 Rick Born -- field trip -- Harvard Med. see map
Feb 5 Arash Afraz -- field trip -- Harvard Psychology, 7th Floor, Billy Jim Hall
Feb 26 Piers Howe, Todd Horowitz, and Karla Evans -- field trip -- Visual Attention Lab
Mar 5 Student presentations
Mar 12 Spring break
Mar 19 Paul Dizio -- field trip -- Graybiel Lab
Apr 23 No class (University Monday)
Apr 30 Student presentations, Room B03, 2:00 to 5:00
Topic: pattern-based fMRI
Readings
Kamitani Y & Tong F. Decoding the visual and subjective contents of the human brain. Nat Neurosci. 2005 May;8(5):679-85.
http://www.psy.vanderbilt.edu/tonglab/publications/Kamitani&Tong_NN2005.pdf
Boynton GM.Imaging orientation selectivity: decoding conscious perception in V1.Nat Neurosci. 2005 May;8(5):541-2.
http://faculty.washington.edu/gboynton/publications/boynton-natureneuro05.pdf
Matlab code:
http://www.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/~raj/Matlab/raj_explore_kamitani_tong2.m
Core reading
Yigal Agam, Daniel Bullock and Robert Sekuler
J Neurophysiol 94:2832-2843, 2005. First published Jul 13, 2005; doi:10.1152/jn.00366.2005
Supplementary readings
Averbeck BB, Chafee MV, Crowe DA, Georgopoulos AP.
Parallel processing of serial movements in prefrontal cortex.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2002 Oct 1;99(20):13172-7.
Dinstein I. Human cortex: reflections of mirror neurons. Curr Biol. 2008 Oct 28;18(20):R956-9.
Jan 29 Rick Born -- field trip -- Harvard Med
Background
Born, R. T. and Bradley, D. C. (2005) Structure and function of visual area MT. Annu. Rev. Neurosci., 28:157-89. DOI, 10.1146/annurev.neuro.26.041002.131052 pdf available at: http://www.hms.harvard.edu/bss/neuro/bornlab/lab/papers/born-bradley-mt-arn2005.pdf
Core Readings
Pack, C. C., Berezovskii, V. K. and Born, R. T. (2001) Dynamic properties of neurons in cortical area MT in alert and anesthetized macaque monkeys. Nature, 414:905-908. pdf available at: http://www.hms.harvard.edu/bss/neuro/bornlab/
Pack, C. C., Gartland, A. J. and Born, R. T. (2004) Integration of contour and terminator signals in visual area MT of alert macaque. J. Neurosci., 24:3268-3280. pdf available at: http://www.hms.harvard.edu/bss/neuro/bornlab/
Supplementary
Salzman, C.D., Britten, K.H., and Newsome, W.T. Cortical microstimulation influences perceptual judgements of motion direction. Nature 346, 174-7 (1990).
Salzman, C.D., Murasugi, C.M., Britten, K.H., and Newsome, W.T. Microstimulation in visual area MT: effects on direction discrimination performance. J. Neurosci. 12, 2331-55 (1992).
Related
Bershanzkaya, J., Grossberg, S., and Mingolla, E. Laminar cortical dynamics of visual form and motion interactions
during coherent object motion perception. Spatial Vision, 20(4), 337-395. pdf
Feb 5 Arash Afraz -- field trip -- Harvard Psychology
"Faces in the brain"
Why faces?
Background in psychophysics
Face neurons
Face aftereffect
Spatial limits of face processing
Core Readings
Afraz SR, Cavanagh P. Retinotopy of the face aftereffect. Vision Res. 2008 Jan;48(1):42-54. pdf
Afraz SR, Kiani R, Esteky H. Microstimulation of inferotemporal cortex influences face categorization.Nature. 2006 Aug 10;442(7103):692-5. pdf
Background Readings
Leopold DA, O'Toole AJ, Vetter T, Blanz V. Prototype-referenced shape encoding revealed by high-level aftereffects. Nat Neurosci. 2001 Jan;4(1):89-94. pdf
Gross CG. Processing the facial image: a brief history. Am Psychol. 2005 Nov;60(8):755-63. Review. pdf
Kravitz DJ, Vinson LD, Baker CI. How position dependent is visual object recognition? Trends Cogn Sci. 2008 Mar;12(3):114-22. Epub 2008 Feb 11. Review. pdf
DiCarlo JJ, Cox DD. Untangling invariant object recognition. Trends Cogn Sci. 2007 Aug;11(8):333-41. Epub 2007 Jul 16. pdf
Yazdanbakhsh A. and Gori, S. (2008) A new psychophysical estimation of the receptive field size, Neuroscience Letters, 438(2): 246-251. pdf
Nishina, S., A. Yazdanbakhsh, et al. (2007). "Depth propagation across an illusory surface." J Opt Soc Am A Opt Image Sci Vis 24(4): 905-10. pdf
Nishida, S. and A. Johnston (2002). "Marker correspondence, not processing latency, determines temporal binding of visual attributes." Curr Biol 12(5): 359-68. pdf
Moutoussis, K. and S. Zeki (1997). "A direct demonstration of perceptual asynchrony in vision." Proc Biol Sci 264(1380): 393-9 pdf
Gori, S. and A. Yazdanbakhsh (2008) The Riddle of the Rotating Tilted Lines Illusion. Perception, 37(4): 631-635. pdf
Computational models of high-level vision
For readings, see: http://web.mit.edu/serre/www/courses/CN-730-sp09.html
Piers Howe, Todd Horowitz, and Karla Evans
Readings
Howe PD, Thompson PG, Anstis SM, Sagreiya H, Livingstone MS. Explaining the footsteps, belly dancer, Wenceslas, and kickback illusions. J Vis. 2006 Dec 12;6(12):1396-405. http://www.journalofvision.org/6/12/5/
Horowitz TS, Klieger SB, Fencsik DE, Yang KK, Alvarez GA, Wolfe JM. Tracking unique objects. Percept Psychophys. 2007 Feb;69(2):172-84. pdf
Li FF, VanRullen R, Koch C, Perona P. Rapid natural scene categorization in the near absence of attention. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2002 Jul 9;99(14):9596-601. Full text.
Mar 6 Student presentations
Mar 12 Spring break
This page is maintained by Ennio Mingolla
Please direct questions to: ennio @ cns.bu.edu
