The 2005 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 perceptual consequences of eye movements, motion perception, binocular vision, and object recognition. Several 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 CN 730
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 20 Organizational meeting
Jan 27 Rick Born and Chris Pack --
field trip
Feb 3 Michele Rucci
Feb 10 Moshe Bar
Feb 17 Aude Oliva
Feb 24 Piers Howe and Marge Livingstone -- field trip
Mar
3 Aaron Seitz -- AT
CNS, at usual time, on THURSDAY!!!
Mar 10 No class (spring break)
Mar 17 Peter Schiller -- field
trip
Mar 24 Arash Fazl and Marc Pomplun
Mar
31 Marc Pomplun and Arash Fazl
Apr 7 Ken Nakayama
Apr 14 Rushi Bhatt and Steve Grossberg
Apr 21 Student presentations
Apr 26 Student presentations -- NOTE:
This is a Tuesday, starting time is 9:30 AM.
Jan
27 -- Rick Born and Chris Pack (field
trip: Harvard Med; map)
Background
Born, R. T. and Bradley. Annu. Rev. Neurosci. (details forthcoming)
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. Technical Report CAS/CNS-TR-2004-011,
Boston University. -- download
Feb 3 Michele Rucci
Core
Readings
Martinez-Conde S, Macknik SL, and Hubel DH (2004) The role of fixational eye
movements in visual perception. Nature Rev Neurosci 5:229-240. download
M. Rucci, G.M. Edelman and J. Wray “Modeling LGN responses during free-viewing:
A possible role of microscopic eye movements in the refinement of cortical orientation
selectivity”, Journal of Neuroscience, 20, 12, 4708-4720, 2000.
download
Snodderly DM, Kagan I, and Gur M (2001) Selective activation of visual cortex
neurons by fixational eye movements: Implications for neural coding. Vis
Neurosci 18:259-277. download
Steinman RM, Haddad GM, Skavenski AA, and Wyman D (1973) Miniature eye movement.
Science 181:810-819. download
Supplementary
Atick JJ and Redlich A (1992) What does the retina know about natural scenes?
Neural Comp 4:449-572.
Greschner M, Bongard M, Rujan P, and Ammermfuller J (2002) Retina ganglion cell
synchronization by Fxational eye movements improves feature estimation. Nature
5:341-347.
Gur M, Beylin A, and Snodderly DM (1997) Response variability of neurons in
primary visual cortex (V1) of alert monkeys. J Neurosci 17:2914-2920.
Martinez-Conde S, Macknik SL, and Hubel DH (2000) Microsaccadic eye movements
and fring of single cells in the striate cortex of macaque monkeys. Nat
Neurosci 3:251-258.
Olveczky B, Baccus S, and Meister M (2003) Segregation of object and background
motion in the retina. Nature 423:401-408.
M. Rucci and A. Casile, “Fixational instability and natural image statistics:
Implications for early visual representations”, submitted manuscript and
Boston University Technical Report CAS/CNSTR-04-014, 2004.
M. Rucci and A. Casile “Decorrelation of neural activity during fixational
eye movements: Possible implications for the refinement of V1 receptive fields”,
Visual Neuroscience, in press.
M. Rucci and G. Desbordes, “Contributions of fixational eye movements
to the discrimination of briefly presented stimuli”, Journal of Vision,
3(11), 852-864, 2003.
Back to top of page
Feb 10 -- Moshe Bar
The Contribution of Top-Down Predictions to Object Recognition
Core Readings (all of the core readings are downloadable from here)
M.
Bar (2004). Visual objects in context. Nature Reviews: Neuroscience, 5, 619-629.
M. Bar and E. Aminoff (2003). Cortical analysis of visual context. Neuron, 38,
347-358.
M. Bar (2003). A cortical mechanism for triggering top-down facilitation in
visual object recognition. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 15, 600-609.
M. Bar, R. Tootell, D. Schacter, D. Greve, B. Fischl, J. Mendola, B. Rosen and
A. M. Dale (2001). Cortical mechanisms of explicit visual object recogntion.
Neuron, 29, 529-535.
Supplementary (The following items contain useful background on fMRI methods.)
Functional
magnetic resonance imaging of the human brain: data acquisition and analysis.
Turner R, Howseman A, Rees GE, Josephs O, Friston K, Exp. Brain. Res., 123,
5-12 (1998)
Functional magnetic resonance imaging with echo planar imaging. Kwong KK, Magn.
Reson. Q., 11, 1-20 (1995)
Heeger, DJ and Ress, D. (2002). What does fMRI tell us about neuronal activity?
Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 3, 142-151.
Functional and structural mapping of human cerebral cortex: solutions are in
the surfaces. Van Essen, D.C., Drury, H.A., Joshi, S., and Miller, M.I. 1998.
PNAS 95: 788-795.
Cortical Surface-Based Analysis I. Segmentation and Surface Reconstruction Anders
M. Dale, Bruce Fischl, and Martin I. Sereno. 1999. NeuroImage 9: 195-207.
Cortical Surface-Based Analysis II: Inflation, Flattening, and a Surface-Based
Coordinate System Bruce Fischl, Martin I. Sereno, and Anders M. Dale. 1999.
NeuroImage 9: 179-194.
Echo planar imaging: MRI in a fraction of a second. Stehling MK, Turner R, Mansfield
P, Science, 254, 43-50 (1990
Feb 17 -- Aude Oliva
Core readings
Scene-Centered
Description from Spatial Envelope Properties.
Oliva, A. & Torralba, A. (2002). Lecture Note in Computer Science Serie.
Proc.
2nd Workshop on Biologically Motivated Computer Vision, Tuebingen, Germany.
download
Torralba, A. (in press, 2005). Contextual influences on saliency. Neurobiology
of Attention. Eds. L. Itti, G. Rees and J. Tsotsos. Academic Press / Elsevier.
download
Supplementary -- Note that expanded versions of the two core readings
are the first two papers in the following list.
Oliva,
A. & Torralba, A. (2001). Modeling the Shape of the Scene: A Holistic Representation
of the Spatial Envelope. International Journal of Computer Vision, 42(3), 145-175.
download
A. Torralba. (2003). Modeling global scene factors in attention. Journal of
Optical Society of America A. Special Issue on Bayesian and Statistical Approaches
to Vision. Vol. 20(7), pages 1407-1418. download
Chun,
M. (2004). Contextual cueing of visual attention. Trends in cognitive science,
4, 5, 170-178. download
Epstein, R., & Kanwisher, N. (1998). A cortical representation of the local
visual environment. Nature, 392, 598-501. download
Henderson, J.M. (2003). Human gaze control during real-world scene perception.
Trends in Cognitive Science, 7, 11, 498-504. download
Oliva, A. (in press). Gist of a Scene. In Neurobiology of Attention. Eds. L.
Itti, G. Rees and J. Tsotsos. Academic Press, Elsevier. download
Torralba, A., Oliva, A. (2003). Statistics of Natural Images Categories. Network:
Computation in Neural Systems, 14, 391-412. download
Rousselet, G., & Fabre-Thorpe, M., & Thorpe, S.J. (2002). Parallel processing
in high-level categorization of natural images. Nature Neuroscience, 5, 629-630.
download
Feb 24 -- Piers Howe and Marge Livingstone (field trip: Harvard Med; map)
Binocular vision and stereo correspondence problem
Abstract: The brain can achieve depth perception by comparing the images on the left and right retinas, an ability known as stereopsis. To do this the visual system must first determine for each point in one retinal image which point in the other originated from the same point in the visual scene. How the brain identifies such corresponding points remains controversial. Here we show that some neurons in the primary visual cortex (V1) can solve some instances of this correspondence problem. The initial responses of these cells are uninformative but after a delay of 60 ms the neurons respond only to the disparity between corresponding points in the two retinal images. Such cells would appear to play a crucial role in binocular vision.
Background
Blake R, Wilson HR. Neural models of stereoscopic vision. Trends in Neurosciences , 1991 Oct;14(10):445-52. download
Core
Readings
Livingstone, M.S. and Tsao, D. Y. (1999). Receptive fields of disparity-selective
neurons in the macaque striate cortex. Nature Neuroscience, 2(9), 825-832
Pack, C.C., Livingstone, M.S., Duffy, K.D., and Born, R.T. (2003). End-stopping
and the aperture problem: Two-dimensional motion signals in macaque V1. Neuron,
39, 671-680.
Mar 3 Aaron Seitz
Mar 17 Peter Schiller -- field trip
While exploring Peter Schiller's web site, pay particular attention to the part of the research section labeled:
2. The Neural Control of Visually Guided Eye Movements:
Readings
P.H.
Schiller, the neural control of visually guided eye movements. Ed:
J. Richards, IN: Cognitive Neuroscience of Attention, Erlbaum, 1998.
E.J. Tehovnik, M.A. Sommer, I. Chou, W.M. Slocum and P.H. Schiller, Eye fields
in the frontal lobes of primates, Brain Research Reviews, 32, 2000, 413-448.
download from ScienceDirect
Mar 24 Arash Fazl and Marc Pomplun
Note: Readings for this and the following week appear as a single list below.
Background
Liversedge SP, Findlay JM. 2000. Saccadic eye movements and cognition. Trends Cogn Sci 4: 6-14 -- download from ScienceDirect
Henderson, A. and Hollingworth, J.M. High-level scene perception. Annu.Rev.Psychol.1999.50:243Œ71-- download
Core Readings
Pomplun,
M., Shen, J. & Reingold, E.M. (2003). Area activation: A computational model
of saccadic selectivity in visual search. Cognitive Science 27,299 - 312.
http://www.cs.umb.edu/~marc/pubs/pomplun_et_al_COGSCI.pdf
Pomplun, M., Reingold, E.M. & Shen, J. (2001). Peripheral and parafoveal
cueing and masking effects on saccadic selectivity in a gaze-contingent window
paradigm. Vision Research 41, 2757 - 2769.
http://www.cs.umb.edu/~marc/pubs/pomplun_et_al_visionres2001.pdf
Pomplun, M., Velichkovsky, B.M. & Ritter, H. (1996). Disambiguating complex
visual information: Towards communication of personal views of a scene. Perception
25 (8), 931-948.download
Pomplun, M., Reingold, E.M. & Shen, J. (2001). Investigating the visual
span in comparative search: The effects of task difficulty and divided attention.Cognition
81, B57-B67.
http://www.cs.umb.edu/~marc/pubs/pomplun_et_al_cognition2001.pdf
Mar 31 Marc Pomplun and Arash Fazl
Note: See entry for previous week.
Apr 7 Ken Nakayama
Reading
McPeek, R.M., Skavenski, A., Nakayama, K. (2000) Concurrent processing of saccades in visual search. Vision Research, 40, 2499-2516. download
Apr 14 Rushi Bhatt and Steve Grossberg
Core Readings
Grossberg, S. (1968). Some physiological and biochemical consequences of psychological postulates. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 60, 758-765. downloadAdditional Readings
-- Available at Steve's web site.
Grossberg, S. (1973). Contour enhancement, short-term memory, and
constancies in reverberating neural networks. Studies in Applied
Mathematics, 52, 213-257.
Cohen, M.A. and Grossberg, S. (1983). Absolute stability of global
pattern formation and parallel memory storage by competitive neural
networks. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, SMC-13,
815-826
Last Updated 31 Mar 2005
This page is maintained by Ennio Mingolla
Please direct questions to: ennio@cns.bu.edu
