2007 Edwards Psychology Lecture Series
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March 7, 2007
Vision and the Brain: Unseen Complexities
Location: Kane Hall Room 120, UW Seattle
Time: 7 - 9 p.m.
Why do we need vision? As it turns out, there are two answers to this question. On the one hand, we need vision to give us detailed knowledge of the world beyond ourselves – knowledge that allows us to recognize things from minute to minute and day to day. On the other hand, we also need vision to guide our actions in that world at the very moment they occur. These are two quite different job descriptions, and nature seems to have given us two different visual systems to carry them out. One system, vision-for-perception, allows us to recognize objects and build up a ‘database’ about the world. This is the system we are more familiar with, the one that gives us our conscious visual experience – and allows us to perceive objects and events in the world. The other, much less studied and understood system, vision-for-action, provides the visual control we need to move about and interact with objects. Visual processing in this system does not have to be conscious, but does have to be quick and accurate. Both systems work together in the production of everyday visually guided behaviour.
In this lecture, Dr. Murray will explore the problems in the context of object size and brightness perception, and discuss computational challenges in sigh which require extensive neural processing . Dr. Goodale will discuss how separate but interacting visual systems have evolved for the perception of objects on the one hand and the control of actions directed at those objects on the other, examining how both systems process information but each using the information in different ways.
Speakers
Scott O. Murray
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Washington
Dr. Murray has been instrumental in building up the Cognitive Neuroscience program and campus-wide functional neuroimaging facilities. He studies the neural basis of visual cognition using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of the human brain. A major focus of his research is to specify how feedback mechanisms contribute to visual object perception and, in particular, how higher-level brain areas that process information about complex visual context influence lower-level brain areas that process information about simpler stimulus attributes. His research has been supported through a number of awards from the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense.
Melvyn A. Goodale, Ph.D., C.Psych., F.R.S.C.
Research Professor in Visual Neuroscience, University of Western Ontario
Dr. Goodale is best known for his work on the functional organization of the visual pathways in the cerebral cortex, and was a pioneer in the study of visuomotor control in neurological patients. His recent research uses functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to look at the activity in the normal human brain as it performs different kinds of visual tasks. His recent book with David Milner, ‘Sight Unseen: An Exploration of Conscious and Unconscious Vision' (Oxford University Press), provides compelling arguments that the brain mechanisms underlying our conscious visual experience of the world are quite separate from those involved in the visual control of skilled actions.