[Overview] [Goals and Assessment] [Readings] [Syllabus: 1 2 3 4 5 6]

85-408/708: Visual Cognition

Spring 2012, Tue/Thu noon-1:20pm, Baker 336B

Instructor: David Plaut
Baker 254N, x85145
plaut@cmu.edu

Course webpage: http://www.cnbc.cmu.edu/~plaut/VisCog/

Overview

Recognizing an object, face or word is a complex process which is mastered with little effort by humans. This course adopts a three-pronged approach, drawing on psychological, neural and computational models to explore a range of topics including early vision, visual attention, face recognition, reading, object recognition, and visual imagery. The course will take a seminar format.

The course is divided into six sections: 1) Background in low- and intermediate-level vision and in methods; 2) Attention and spatial cognition; 3) Object recognition; 4) Face recognition; 5) Word recognition; and 6) Interactions between brain systems. The first section (Background) will consist of standard lectures, but each of the remaining sections will involve in-class discussion of one or two assigned articles, led by a student in the class (or occasionally by a guest lecturer). In addition to reading the articles and participating in class discussions, students will be expected to write three short papers (one covering Section 2, one covering Sections 3-4, and one covering Sections 5-6; the first two should be 3-5 pages each, the third should be 1.5-3 pages), and a final paper (10-15 pages). The short papers will involve synthesizing the assigned readings from the relevant section(s), and the final paper will be on a topic of the student's choice (in consultation with the instructor).

Course Goals and Assessment

Below are the broad goals of the course and how each is assessed (listed in brackets).

Extend breadth of knowledge of cognitive psychology, including theoretical perspectives, research findings, and applications [assessed through writing assignments and in-class discussions]
Foster familiarity with diverse experimental paradigms used in psychology [assessed through writing assignments and in-class discussions].
Engender the ability to read and critique psychological articles [assessed through writing assignments and in-class discussions].
Improve skill in oral and written presentation [through writing assignments and article presentation].
Foster critical thinking and creativity [assessed through writing assignments, in-class discussions, and formulation of final paper].

The grading in the class will be divided up as follows:

Paper on Section 2	20%
Paper on Sections 3-4	20%
Paper on Sections 5-6	10%
Class participation:	10%
Final paper	40%

Papers other than the final paper should be handed in as physical print-outs and are due at the beginning of class on the date listed in the Syllabus. The final paper should be submitted as a pdf file via email. The 10% for class participation will be based on the quality of the in-class article presentation and on contributions to class discussions throughout the semester. Late penalties will be assessed as follows: Papers handed in late but before 5pm of the next day will be penalized by 5% of the total possible points; those handed in after that but before 5pm on the following weekday (Thursday if due on Tuesday; Monday if due on Thursday) will be penalized by 10%; those handed in later than that will be penalized by 15%. Late papers may be submitted to the instructor by email (pdf file).

Readings

There is no required text for the course. All assigned readings are available as downloadable pdf files from links in the Syllabus below. Other course materials (e.g., descriptions of paper assignments) will be made available via links at the top of this web page.

Syllabus

This syllabus is subject to change throughout the course, so be sure to revisit this web page frequently.

Section 1: Background in low- and intermediate-level vision

Jan 17 (Tue): Basic organization of the visual system (slides)

Kolb, B. and Wishaw, I.Q. (2004). Introduction to brain and behavior (pp. 272-294). New York: Worth.
Marr, D (1982). Vision (Chapter 1: The philosopy and the approach; pp. 8-40). Freeman: New York.

Jan 19 (Thu): Methods in cognitive neuroscience (slides)

Gazzaniga, M.S., Ivry, R.B., and Mangun, G.R. (2008). Cognitive neuroscience: The biology of the mind (Chapter 4: The methods of cognitive neuroscience). New York: W.H. Norton

Jan 24 (Tue): Intermediate-level vision and perceptual organization (slides)

Gazzaniga, M.S. and Heatherton, T.F. (2006). Psychological science (Chapter 5: Sensation, perception, and attention, pp. 182-202). New York: W.H. Norton. [A reasonable, briefer overview with some nice demonstrations]
(optional: Palmer, S.E. (1999). Vision science: Photons to phenomenology (Chapter 6: Organizing objects and scenes). Cambridge, MA: Bradford books. [A much more thorough treatement of the relevant phenomena])
(optional: Wilkin, A. and Tenenbaum, J. (1983). What is perceptual organization for? In A. Bundy (Ed.), Proceedings of the 8th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (pp. 92-95), Karlsruhe, West Germany. Berlin: William Kaufmann.)

Jan 26 (Thu): Computational approaches to low- and intermediate-level vision (slides)

Rumelhart, D. E., Smolensky, P., McClelland, J. L., and Hinton, G. E. (1986). Schemata and sequential thought processes in PDP models (pp. 8-17: Parallel distributed processing models as constraint satisfaction networks). In J. L. McClelland, D. E. Rumelhart, and the PDP research group (Eds.), Parallel distributed processing: Explorations in the microstructure of cognition. Volume 2: Psychological and biological models. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Marr, D. and Poggio, T. (1976). Cooperative computation of stereo disparity. Science, 194, 283-287.

Section 2: Attention and spatial cognition

Jan 31 (Tue): Behavioral studies/overview of attention (slides) [led by D. Plaut]

Allport, A. (1989). Visual attention. In M. I. Posner (Ed.) Foundations of cognitive science (Chapter 16, pp. 361-382). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
(optional: Desimone, R., and Duncan, J. (1995). Neural mechanisms of selective visual attention. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 18, 193-197.)

Feb 2 (Thu): Space- vs. object-based attention (slides) [led by T. Molesworth]

Egly, R., Driver, J. and Rafal, R.D. (1994). Shifting visual attention between objects and locations: Evidence from normal and parietal lesion subjects. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 123, 161-177.
Shomstein, S. and Behrmann, M. (2006). Cortical systems mediating visual attention to both objects and spatial locations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, U.S.A., 103, 11387-11392.

Feb 7 (Tue): Neuropsychological studies (hemispatial neglect) (slides) [led by J. Goodwyn]

Husain, M. and Rorden, C. (2003). Non-spatially lateralized mechanisms in hemispatial neglect. Nature Neuroscience Reviews, 4, 26-36.
(optional: Corbetta, M. and Shulman, G.L. (2011). Spatial neglect and attention networks. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 34, 569-599.)

Feb 9 (Thu): Perception for action ("where" vs. "how") (slides) [led by D. Plaut]

Goodale, M.A. and Humphrey, G.K. (1998). The objects of action and perception. Cognition, 67, 181-207.
Himmelbach, M., Boehme, R. and Karnath, H.-O. (2012). 20 years later: A second look on DF’s motor behaviour. Neuropsychologia, 50, 139-144.
(optional: Goodale, M.A., Milner, A.D., Jakobson, L.S. and Carey, D.P. (1991). A neurological dissociation between perceiving objects and grasping them. Nature, 349, 154-156.)
(optional: Milner, A.D. and Goodale, M.A. (2008). Two visual systems re-viewed. Neuropsychologia, 46, 774-785.)

Feb 14 (Tue): Eye movements and reaching (optic ataxia) (slides) [led by D. Mullowney]

Awh, E., Armstrong, K.M. and Moore, T. (2006). Visual and oculomotor selection: Links, causes and implications for spatial attention. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10, 124-130.
Rossetti, Y., Pisella, L. and Vighetto, A. (2003). Optic ataxia revisited: Visually guided action versus immediate visuomotor control. Experimenal Brain Research, 153, 171-179.

Feb 16 (Thu): Functional neuroimaging of attention (slides) [led by A. Greenberg]

Corbetta, M. and Shulman, G.L. (2002). Control of goal-directed and stimulus-driven attention in the brain. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 3, 201-215.

Feb 21 (Tue): Neurophysiology of attention (slides) [led by A. Ng]

Kastner, S., and Ungerleider, L. (2000). Mechanisms of visual attention in the human cortex. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 23, 315-341.
(optional: Reynolds, J.H. and Chelazzi, L. (2004). Attentional modulation of visual processing. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 27, 611-647.)

Feb 23 (Thu): Computational approaches to attention (slides) [led by Y. Xu]

Itti, L. and Koch, C. (2001). Computational modelling of visual attention. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2, 194-203.
Corchs, S. and Deco, G. (2002). Large-scale neural model for visual attention: Integration of experimental single-cell and fMRI data. Cerebral Cortex, 12, 339-348.

Section 3: Object recognition

Feb 28 (Tue): Behavioral studies/overview of object recognition (slides) [led by K. Zamora]
[PAPER ON SECTION 2 DUE]

Logothetis, N.K. and Sheinberg, D.L. (1996). Visual object recognition. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 19, 577-621.

Mar 1 (Thu): Computational approaches to object recognition [led by M. Tarr]

DiCarlo, J.J. and Cox, D.D. (2007). Untangling invariant object recognition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 11, 333-341.
(optional: Peissig, J.J. and Tarr, M.J. (2007). Visual object recognition: Do we know more now than we did 20 years ago? Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 75-96.)

Mar 6 (Tue): Neuropsychologial studies of object recognition (visual agnosia) (slides) [led by M. Walter]

Humphreys, G.W. and Riddoch, M.J. (2006). Features, objects, action: The cognitive neuropsychology of visual object processing, 1984-2004. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 23, 156-183.
(optional: Behrmann, M., Winocur, G. and Moscovitz, M. (1992). Dissociation between mental imagery and object recognition in a brain-damaged patient. Nature, 359, 636-637.)

Mar 8 (Thu): Neurophysiology of object recognition (slides) [led by C. Olson]

Kiani, R., Esteky, H., Mirpour, K., and Tanaka, K. (2007). Object category structure in response patterns of neuronal population in monkey inferior temporal cortex. Journal of Neurophysiology, 97, 4296-4309.
(optional: Sripati, A.P., and Olson, C.R. (2010). Global image dissimilarity in macaque inferotemporal cortex predicts human visual search efficiency. Journal of Neuroscience, 30, 1258-1269.)

Mar 13 (Tue): NO CLASS (Spring Break)
Mar 15 (Thu): NO CLASS (Spring Break)

Mar 20 (Tue): Functional neuroimaging of object recognition (slides) [led by D. Plaut]

Grill-Spector, K., and Malach, R. (2004). The human visual cortex. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 27, 649-677.
(optional: Ishai, A., Ungerleider, L.G., Martin, A., Schouten, J.L., and Haxby, J.V. (1999). Distributed representation of objects in the human ventral visual pathway. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, U.S.A., 96, 9379-9384.)

Section 4: Face recognition

Mar 22 (Thu): Behavioral studies/overview of face recognition (slides) [led by P. Morrison]

Tanaka, J.W., and Gordon, I. (2011). Features, configuration, and holistic face processing. In A.J. Calder, G. Rhodes, M.H. Johnson, and J.V. Haxby (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of face perception (pp. 177-194). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
(optional: Liu, C.H., and Chaudhuri, A. (2003). What determines whether faces are special? Visual Cognition, 10, 385-408.)
(optional: McKone, E., and Robbins, R. (2011). Are faces special? In A.J. Calder, G. Rhodes, M.H. Johnson, and J.V. Haxby (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of face perception (pp. 149-176). Oxford: Oxford University Press.)

Mar 27 (Tue): Functional neuroimaging of face recognition (slides) [led by A. Nestor]

Haxby, J.V., Gobbini, I. Furey, M.L., Ishai, A. Schouten, J.L., and Pietrini, P. (2001). Distributed and overlapping representations of faces and objects in ventral temporal cortex. Science, 293, 2425-2430.
(optional: Kanwisher, N. McDermott, J., and Chun, M.M. (1997). The fusiform face area: A module in human extrastriate cortex specialized for face perception. Journal of Neuroscience, 17, 4302-4311.)
(optional: Gauthier, I., Tarr, M.J., Anderson, A.W., Skudlarski, P., and Gore, J.C. (1999). Activation of the middle fusiform 'face area' increases with expertise in recognizing novel objects. Nature Neuroscience, 2, 568-573.)

Mar 29 (Thu): Neuropsychological studies of face recognition (prosopagnosia) (slides) [led by K. Choi]

Behrmann, M., Avidan, G., Thomas, C. and Nishimura, M. (2011). Impairments in face perception. In A.J. Calder, G. Rhodes, M.H. Johnson, and J.V. Haxby (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of face perception (pp. 799-820). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Apr 3 (Tue): Neurophysiology of face recognition (slides) [led by Y. Ying]

Tsao, D.Y., and Livingstone, M.S. (2008). Mechanisms of face perception. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 31, 411-437.
(optional: Freiwald, W.A., Tsao, D.Y., and Livingstone, M.S. (2009). A face feature space in the macaque temporal lobe. Nature Neuroscience, 12, 1187-1196.)
(optional: Leopold, D.A., Bondar, I.V., and Giese, M.A. (2006). Norm-based face encoding by single neurons in the monkey inferotemporal cortex. Nature, 442, 572-575.)

Apr 5 (Thu): Computational approaches to face recognition (slides) [led by D. Plaut]

Jiang, X., Rosen, E., Zeffiro, T., VanMeter, J., Blanz, V., and Riesenhuber, M. (2006). Evaluation of a shape-based model of human face discrimination using fMRI and behavioral techniques. Neuron, 50, 159-172.
(optional: O'Toole, A. (2011). Cognitive and computational approaches to face recognition. In A.J. Calder, G. Rhodes, M.H. Johnson, and J.V. Haxby (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of face perception (pp. 15-30). Oxford: Oxford University Press.)

Section 5: Word recognition

Apr 10 (Tue): Behavioral studies/overview of word recognition (slides) [led by E. Dundas]

Rumelhart, D.E., and McClelland, J.L. (1981). Interactive processing through spreading activiation. In A.M. Lesgold and C.A. Perfetti (Eds.), Interactive processes in reading (pp. 37-60). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
(optional: Gomez, P., Ratcliff, R., and Perea, M. (2008). The overlap model: A model of letter position coding. Psychological Review, 115, 577–601.)
(optional: Rayner, K., White, S.J., Johnson, R.L., and Liversedge, S.P. (2006). Raeding wrods with jubmled lettres: There is a cost. Psychological Science, 17, 192-193.)

Apr 12 (Thu): Neuropsychological studies of word recognition (pure alexia, neglect dyslexia) (slides) [led by M. Behrmann]
[PAPER ON SECTIONS 3-4 DUE]

Bub, D. (2003). Alexia and related reading disorders. Neurological Clinics (North America), 21, 549–568.
(optional: Behrmann, M., Plaut, D.C., and Nelson, J. (1998). A literature review and new data supporting an interactive account of letter-by-letter reading. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 15, 7-51.)

Apr 17 (Tue): Functional neuroimaging of word recognition (slides) [led by A. McCarthy]

Price, C.J. and Devlin, J.T. (2011). The interactive account of ventral occipitotemporal contributions to reading. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 15, 246-253.
Dehaene, S. and Cohen, L. (2011). The unique role of the visual word form area in reading. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 15, 254-262.
(optional: Vinckier, F., Dehaene, S., Jobert, A., Dubus, J.P., Sigman, M., Cohen, L. (2007). Hierarchical coding of letter strings in the ventral stream: Dissecting the inner organization of the visual word-form system. Neuron, 55, 143–156.)
(optional: Glezer, L.S., Jiang, X. and Riesenhuber, M. (2009). Evidence for highly selective neuronal tuning to whole words in the "visual word form area". Neuron, 62, 199-204.)

Apr 19 (Thu): NO CLASS (Spring Carnival)

Apr 24 (Tue): Computational approaches to word recognition (slides) [led by D. Plaut]

Plaut, D.C. and Behrmann, M. (2011). Complementary neural representations for faces and words: A computational exploration. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 28, 251-275.
(optional: Plaut, D.C. (2006). Connectionist approaches to reading. In M. Snowling, C. Hulme, and M. Seidenberg (Eds.), The science of reading: A handbook. Oxford: Blackwell.)

Section 6: Interactions among brain systems

Apr 26 (Thu): Dorsal-ventral interactions [lead by E. Bai]

Borst, G., Thompson, W.L., and Kosslyn, S.M. (2011). Understanding the dorsal and ventral systems of the human cerebral cortex: Beyond dichotomies. American Psychologist, 66, 624-632.

May 1 (Tue): Frontal contributions (slides) [led by D. Plaut]

Bar, M., Kassam, K.S., Ghuman, A.S., Boshyan, J., Schmid, A.M., Dale, A.M., Hamalainen, M.S., Marinkovic, K., Schacter, D.L., Rosen, B.R., Halgren, E. (2006). Top-down facilitation of visual recognition. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, U.S.A., 103, 449-454.

May 3 (Thu): Open issues and relation to other domains/systems
[PAPER ON SECTIONS 5-6 DUE]

May 4 (Fri) 5pm: FINAL PAPER DUE