Vision Seminar, PSY 606V
Spring 1998
Tuesday, Thursday; 3:00 - 4:15 pm
Tuesday: Peirce Hall, Room 255 (quant lab)
Thursday: MSEE, Room 186 (VISE lab)
Professors
Professor: Greg Francis
Office: Peirce 359
Phone: (765) 494-6934
Fax: (765) 496-1264
Email: gfrancis@psych.purdue.edu
Professor: Zygmunt Pizlo
Office: Peirce 365D
Phone: (765) 494-6930
Fax: (765) 496-1264
Email: pizlo@psych.purdue.edu
Grades
The final class grades on line.
Text
Spillmann, L. & Werner, J. (1990). Visual perception: The neurophysiological foundations. Academic Press, Inc., San Diego. Other articles and book chapters will be placed on reserve in the Psychology Library.
Class format
This course is designed to acquaint the student with the approach and findings of selected issues in visual perception. The course will consist of part lecture and part interactive learning with computer labs. Students will design and participate in various visual experiments. The class will be held in the VISE and Quantitative Psychology computers labs so that students and instructors can use computers during the class period. The Visual Perception Online Laboratory has been established to integrate computers into this course.
Homework
Homeworks will require the student to contribute to an experiment that explores some aspect of visual perception. Homeworks will contribute to 25% of your final grade.
Examinations:
There will be a midterm exam and a (non-cumulative) final exam. Each exam is worth 25% of your grade. Here is exam 1. Here is the final.
Project
Each student will develop a project related to visual perception. This can consist of an experiment to test some characteristic of human vision, or build and analyze a computational model of some aspect of vision. The project is worth 25% of your final grade.
Class schedule
The following is a tentative list of class topics.
Philosophical roots of perception (1 week)
- Topics: mind-body problem, empericism versus nativism, visual representation, filling-in.
- Readings: [1] S&W, Chapter 3. [2] Hess, E. (1958). Space perception in the chick. D.C. Beardshoe & M. Wertheimer (Eds.) Readings in perception, Von Nostrand: Princeton, NJ. [3] Rock, I. \& Harris, C. (1967). Vision and touch. Scientific American, April,96--104.
- Labs: Westheimer effect, retinal veins.
Psychophysical methods (2-3 weeks)
- Topics: method of constant stimuli, method of adjustment, method of limits, signal detection, sensitivity, adaptive methods.
- Readings: [1] Macmillan, N. & Creelman, C. (1991). Detection theory: a user's guide. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Chapters 1, 2, 5, & 6. [2] Treutwein, B. (1995). Adaptive psychophysical procedures. Vision Research, 35, 2530--2522.
- Labs: Signal detection, method of constant stimuli, line length judgements.
Anatomy and physiology (2 weeks)
- Topics: retina, rods & cones, receptive fields, cortical areas, neurons, visual pathways.
- Readings: [1] S&W Chapters 5 & 6. [2] DeYoe, E. A. & van Essen, D. C. (1988). Concurrent processing streams in monkey visual cortex. Trends in Neurosciences, 11, 219--226.
- Labs: blind spot, visual acuity, receptive fields.
Lightness & color (2 weeks)
- Topics: Lightness & color constancy, linear models, opponent processes, trichromatic theory, Mondrians.
- Readings: [1] S&W Chapters 7 & 8. [2] Maloney, L. (1993). In Meyer, D. E. & Kornblum, S. (Eds.) Attention & Performance XIV: Synergies in Experimental Psychology, Artificial Intelligence, and Cognitive Neuroscience -- A Silver Jubilee. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. [3] Hurvich, L. & Jameson, D. (1951). The binocular fusion of yellow in relation to color theories. Science, 114, 199--202. [4] Gilchrist, A. & Jacobsen, A. (1983). Lightness constancy through a veiling luminance. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 6, 936--944.
- Labs: Color matching, afterimages, simiultaneous contrast.
Figure-ground / segmentation (2 weeks)
- Topics: T-junctions, illusory contours, pop-out, texture segmentation, simplicity, likelihood, Gestalt rules, BCS-FCS, FACADE, percepts .
- Readings: [1] S & W Chapters 10 & 11. [2] Pomerantz & Kuborg (1986). [3] Grossberg, S. (1997). Cortical dynamics of three-dimensional figure-ground perception of two-dimensional pictures. Psychological Review, 104, 618--658.
- Labs: grouping laws, illusory contours, visual search.
Motion (1 week)
- Topics: apeture problem, apparent motion, line motion, energy models.
- Readings: [1] S & W Chapter 9. [2] ????
- Labs: apparent motion, line motion.
Shape from motion (1 week)
- Topics: ???
- Readings: [1] Ullman, (1979). Appendix? [2] Wallach & O'Connell (1953). [3] L & H (1981).
- Labs: ????.
Stereo vision (1 week)
- Topics: disparity, correspondence problem,
- Readings: [1] S & W Chapter 12. [2] Howard & Rogers (1995). Chapter ??
- Labs: single-image stereograms.
Dynamic vision (1 week)
- Topics: Persistence,, integration, masking,.
- Readings: ????
- Labs: metacontrast masking, persistence, attentional blink.
Shape constancy (1 week)
- Topics: geometrical approach, groups, invariants.
- Readings: [1] Pizlo, Z. (1994). A theory of shape constancy based on perspective invariants. Vision Research, 34, 1637--1658. [2] Pizlo, Z., Rosenfeld, A. & Weiss, I. (1997). The geometry of visual space: About the incompatibility between science and mathematics. Computer vision and image understanding, 65, 425--433. [3] Pizlo, Z., Rosenfeld, A. & Weiss, I. (1997). Visual space: Mathematics, engineering, and science. Computer vision and image understanding, 65, 450--454.
- Labs: ???
