Seminar: Concepts in Visual Neuroscience - PSY 522A & 426
GOAL & TOPICS
The goal is to familiarize with concepts, ideas and hypotheses in
neuroscience with a focus on vision. Topics: neuron models, processing
image structure (retina-primary visual cortex), object recognition
(V2-IT-prefrontal cortex), motion detection, attention.
Abstract:
This seminar will provide an overview of contemprory theories,
concepts and models in neuroscience, with an emphasis on vision. It
will outline the different approaches that are used to understand
neural information processing in the visual system. Some time will be
spent discussing contemporary trends in neuroscience, along with the
contributions from and influences of multiple relevant disciplines,
including psychology, biology, and artificial intelligence. A central
argument will be that there is still no coherent framework or single
concept of neural processing.
FORMAT
The topics will be introduced by lectures. A wealthy manuscript will
be handed out containing graphs and texts from various introductory
books. Students are asked to give presentations on classic or recent
research papers or reviews based on the presented material.
EXAMPLE READING
The following are nice reviews of current debates in visual system
neuroscience, often containing a philosophical introduction. The
reviews may seem long, but we can also focus on just a part of it. And
there are also plenty of other interesting papers.
Albright and Stoner, 2002: on contextual influences in visual processing.
deCharms and Zador, 2000: on cortical (neural) codes and representations.
Ferster and Miller, 2000: on mechanisms of orientation selectivity in visual cortex.
Glimcher, 2003: on saccadic decision making.
Kastner and Ungerleider, 2003: on visual attention.
Full list of suggested reading.
PREREQUISITES
None. It is advantageous though to have heard about neurons or the brain a little bit.
TIME & LOCATION
Tuesdays and Thursdays from 0930-1045. Haggar Hall, 128.
Starting Tuesday, January the 13th.
ORGANIZER/LECTURER
Christoph Rasche (M. Wenger's lab)
227 D, Haggar Hall
crasche@nd.edu
Christoph Rasche
Last modified: Tue Dec 9 12:32:59 EST 2003