This course is the continuation of CN 530 developed by Professor Mingolla with gradual and sustained updating over years to explore the psychological, biological, mathematical and computational foundations of visual perception. Lectures and readings combine with simulation and essay assignments to provide a self-contained examination of core issues in early and middle visual processing. Mathematically specified neural and computational models elucidate the structure and dynamics of the mammalian visual system. Emphasis is placed on understanding the psychophysics and physiology of mammalian vision, both as a means of better understanding our own human intelligence, and as a foundation for tomorrow's machine vision architectures and algorithms. While some of the models developed in recent years at Boston University's Center for Adaptive Systems (CAS) and Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems (CNS) are covered in depth, selected models by a variety of researchers are compared and contrasted.
Meets on Mondays, 1:00 - 4:00 PM, with a discussion hour to be arranged on a different day. Lectures are in Room B03, 677 Beacon Street. Prerequisites: CN 510, or consent of instructor, Arash Yazdanbakhsh
Lecture notes in PDF format are available for downloading the week prior to each session. Notes are created from Powerpoint files, and contain occasional glitches from animations, etc. If you want copies of the original .ppt files, please contact arash_yazdanbakhsh-at-hms.harvard.edu
Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6 Week 7 Week 8 Week 9 Week 11 Week 12 Week 13
Please direct all queries and bug reports to: arash_yazdanbakhsh-at-hms.harvard.edu