When looking around the world, we have the impression that we perceive everything seamlessly and the way it exists: a true image that resembles the physical properties of the world. But in fact, visual perception is a construction of what’s out there, and our visual system often “guesses” and makes complex inferences about what objects we ought to be perceiving. Thus, our perceptual experience is influenced by many top-down factors, such as culture, attention, and our memories.
In this course, we will explore how physical energy (e.g., lights) is converted into neural code, and how that neural code is interpreted to render our meaningful and rich experience of the world. We will learn how our own memories, attention, and cultural background influence our perception of people, objects, scenes, and emotions; the influence of optical illusions; what and why we forget certain visual images but remember others; what the failures of visual attention mean in real-life contexts (such as in clinical settings, e.g., mammography, or the TSA), and how experience shapes our ability to see.
COURSE STRUCTURE:
There will be weekly lectures, complementary readings, and live discussion sections. In addition (often in lieu of the readings) there will be informative videos to watch that are 5 to 30 minutes long, and most are by leading researchers in the field, talking about their own work. All materials (slides, lectures, readings, etc.) will be available online.
GRADING:
There will be short thought papers on the readings, two midterms, and a final exam that covers all of the materials.
SCHEDULE AT A GLANCE:
Week 1
* Perception as unconscious inference. Due today:
Video: 18 minute video on visual illusions (TED talk by Beau Lotto): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mf5otGNbkuc
* The visual system. Due today:
Reading 1: Selection from The Thinking Eye, the Seeing Brain: Explorations in Visual Cognition by James Enns (2004), “What is Vision Science?”.
Week 2
* Mid-level vision. Due today:
Reading 2: Dittrich, W. H., Troscianko, T., Lea, S. E., & Morgan, D. (1996). Perception of emotion from dynamic point-light displays represented in dance. Perception, 25(6), 727-738.
* Recognition: Object recognition. Due today:
Reading 3: Thorpe, S., Fize, D., and Marlot, C. Speed of processing in the human visual system. Nature. 381: 520-522 (1996).
Reading 4: Oliva, A., & Torralba, A. (2007). The role of context in object recognition. Trends in cognitive sciences, 11(12), 520-527.
Video: 18min. video on computer object recognition (Fei Fei Li TED talk): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40riCqvRoMs
Week 3
* Perception and action. Due today:
Reading 5: Ganel, T., Tanzer, M., & Goodale, M. A. (2008). A double dissociation between action and perception in the context of visual illusions: opposite effects of real and illusory size. Psychological Science, 19(3), 221-225. (PDF on Canvas)
Reading 6: Bruno, N. (2001). When does action resist visual illusions? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 5(9), 379–382.
* Midterm 1
Week 4
* Recognition: Faces and expertise. Due today:
Reading 7: Kanwisher, N., McDermott, J., & Chun, M. M. (1997). The fusiform face area: a module in human extrastriate cortex specialized for face perception. Journal of neuroscience, 17(11), 4302-4311.
Reading 8: Duchaine, B., & Nakayama, K. (2005). Dissociations of face and object recognition in developmental prosopagnosia. Journal of cognitive neuroscience, 17(2), 249-261.
Video: 12.5min video on prosopagnosia from 60 minutes TV show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxqsBk7Wn-Y
* Recognition: Scene recognition. Due today:
Reading 9: Epstein, R., & Kanwisher, N. (1998). A cortical representation of the local visual environment. Nature, 392(6676), 598. (PDF on Canvas)
Video: 28min video on brain organization by Nancy Kanwisher: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1pdQjdAndc
Week 5
* Visual Attention. Due today:
Reading 10: Wolfe, J. M., Võ, M. L. H., Evans, K. K., & Greene, M. R. (2011). Visual search in scenes involves selective and nonselective pathways. Trends in cognitive sciences, 15(2), 77-84.
Video: 11min video on visual search by Jeremy Wolfe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7gRIDvPjmk
* Attention & Consciousness. Due today:
Reading 11: O’Regan, J. K., Rensink, R. A., & Clark, J. J. (1999). Change-blindness as a result of ‘mudsplashes’. Nature, 398(6722), 34-34.
Supplements here: http://nivea.psycho.univ-paris5.fr/Mudsplash/Nature_Supp_Inf/Nature_Supp_Inf.html
Reading 12: Luck, S. J., Vogel, E. K., & Shapiro, K. L. (1996). Word meanings can be accessed but not reported during the attentional blink. Nature, 383(6601), 616
Video: 7 min. video about inattentional blindness by Dan Simons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjpLPnRrakc
Week 6
* Ensemble Perception. Due today:
Reading 13: Haberman, J., & Whitney, D. (2011). Efficient summary statistical representation when change localization fails. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 18(5), 855. (PDF on Canvas)
Reading 14: Alvarez, G. A. (2011). Representing multiple objects as an ensemble enhances visual cognition. Trends in cognitive sciences, 15(3), 122-131.
* Visual Imagery and high-level perception. Due today:
Reading 15: Scholl, B. J., & Nakayama, K. (2002). Causal capture: Contextual effects on the perception of collision events. Psychological Science, 13(6), 493-498.
Video: 18min video on Reconstruction of what we are seeing from the visual system (TEDx talk by Jack Gallant): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ecvv-EvOj8M
* Midterm 2
Week 7
* Iconic memory and holding memory active with attention. Due today:
Reading 16: Di Lollo, V. (1977). Temporal characteristics of iconic memory. Nature, 267(5608), 241-243.
Reading 17: Luck, S. J., & Vogel, E. K. (1997). The capacity of visual working memory for features and conjunctions. Nature, 390(6657), 279.
Week 8
* Visual working memory. Due today:
Reading 18: Vogel, E. K., & Machizawa, M. G. (2004). Neural activity predicts individual differences in visual working memory capacity. Nature, 428(6984), 748-751.
* Visual long-term Memory. Due today:
Reading 19: Brady, T. F., Konkle, T., Alvarez, G. A. and Oliva, A. (2008). Visual long-term memory has a massive storage capacity for object details. PNAS, 105 (38), 14325-14329.
Video: 20min video on memory palaces (Josh Foer TED talk): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6PoUg7jXsA
Week 9
* Applied Visual Cognition 1: Mammography, the TSA. Due today:
Reading 20: Drew, T., Võ, M. H., & Wolfe, J. M. (2013). The invisible gorilla strikes again: Sustained inattentional blindness in expert observers. Psychological Science, 24(9).
* Applied Visual Cognition 2: Visualization. Due today:
Reading 21: Nothelfer, C., Gleicher, M., & Franconeri, S. (2017). Redundant encoding strengthens segmentation and grouping in visual displays of data. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 43(9), 1667.
* Midterm 3
Week 10
* Culture and Innateness in Perception and Visual Cognition. Due today:
Reading 22: Gandi, T., Kalia, A., Ganesh, S. & Sinha, P. (2015) Immediate susceptibility to visual illusions after sight onset. Current Biology, 25, R358-361. (PDF on Canvas)
Video: 18min video on learning to see (Pawan Sinha TED talk): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeFl0RE31x0
* Final exam review and course summary
*Final Exam