Instructor: Don MacLeod
Class meetings: Lectures, Tuesday and Thursday 11am to 12.30, 1507McGill
Office Hours: Wednesdays, 10-12, Room 5121 McGill; Tel 534-3975.
Email: dmacleod@ucsd.edu
Web: http://www-psy.ucsd.edu/~dmacleod (and click on “courses” link)
Aims and scope: We consider the process of perception as a causal chain that starts with the sensory stimulus and continues through successive stages of neural representation, culminating finally in the construction of a behaviorally useful representation of the environment. We will be aiming for a research-level treatment of current understanding of selected topics. To make this job easier, we consider mainly visual perception, and select a limited number of problems within that field for in-depth treatment, especially those for which the nature of physiological constraints on perception is clearest. The inquiry focuses particularly on how both subjective (or "psychophysical") and objective (electrophysiological, neuroanatomical) approaches can be brought to bear on the same issues about visual processing, and on the difficulties and successes in achieving consistency between the findings of the two approaches.
Text: Fundamentals of Sensation and Perception
by Mike Levine. (
This text is a 3rd edition. It is, I understand available at the Bookstore. The price is about $75. Earlier editions are unfortunately not good substitutes (though better than nothing I suppose). The book includes a CD-ROM (for a Windows PC with at least 9MB of disc space free—sorry, MacIntosh aficionados). The CD has a useful demo or two for each chapter. To use the CD, run its setup.exe program to install the software to some directory on your hard disc (look at readme.txt on the CD first if you like), and then run Sensperc.exe in the installation directory.
We will (tentatively) be leaving out the speech perception chapter, which leaves Chapters 1-17, 19 and 20. Some of this material is less important than other parts, though. Lectures will indicate, and emphasize, the parts of the material that are most critical, but chapters 2, 12, 17, 19 and 20 will be among the less critical parts of the text.
I strongly encourage review of the material in the text before the associated lecture, as listed below. This will make it easier to deal with the more advanced material that will often be introduced in the lectures.
Prerequisites and desiderata: Psych 102, Introduction to Perception, is ordinarily required. Confident students are not necessarily excluded, however, especially if they have some background in neurobiology or physiological psychology. Quite a few of the topics we consider will be treated quantitatively, so an enthusiasm for thinking quantitatively, or some background in physics or engineering, is also a great advantage…and an aversion to thinking quantitatively is a corresponding handicap.
Format: The lectures will use the topics in the text as a starting point. But they will not necessarily follow the text very closely—they will leave out some topics, and often introduce new material to update and elaborate the discussion in the text. So you should consider the lectures mandatory rather than optional, if you want to do well.
Evaluation (tentative plan):
We plan to have a midterm and a final. Besides these you are asked to produce one substantial paper and one 15 minute presentation to the class.
The paper will be due at the beginning of class on Thursday of Week 7. A recommended length is 10 pages (double spaced type please). The choice of topic is up to you, provided it's relevant to the themes of the course. Discuss it with us first if you're uncertain. Originality will be appreciated, but it isn't mandatory. Possible topics will be discussed in class. You should choose a topic and tell me your choice at least a week before the paper is due. You are expected to consult the research literature beyond the recommended readings in preparing your paper.
Format of the paper is flexible, but: use citations in your paper to justify your claims. Cite authors by name and date, e.g. (Smith & Jones, 1922). Include complete references at the end of the paper in any standard format, e.g. APA format. Include an abstract (a summary of the key points, in less than 1 page). You are encouraged to replace one of the papers with a more concrete project: for instance you could conduct a perception experiment, do a computer simulation, or create an informative visual demonstration. A project could also be accompanied by a short written report if you like.
The presentation should be a short and snappy but comprehensible (to your classmates) account of some topic that the text discusses. Please discuss your choice of topic with me beforehand. One possible choice (though not the best one) is to just summarize and clarify part of the textbook chapter we are dealing with on the day of your presentation, perhaps developing your own understanding of that topic using other sources like the recommended readings. Much better is to introduce some new material that has a connection to the material in the text (for instance, briefly summarize a recent piece of research that has something to say about the topic of the day).
It’s a good idea to use some graphics for your presentation. PowerPoint is a good way to go. I will be bringing a computer graphics projector. If you can use your own laptop for that, that will be fine. Otherwise, I will need notice the day before so I can bring mine. If we have to use my laptop, you can email your .ppt file to me the day before, or bring it to class on a CD. Alternatively, I will bring a projector for overhead transparencies if that’s your preference (N.B. 16 point minimum font size for legibility!).
Tentative distribution of points: Midterm (25%), paper/project/presentations (15% for each of two) and final (45%). Midterm and final exams will be include essay type questions as well as short answer/multiple choice questions—about a 50/50 split between essay type and short answer questions in the total grade. Tentative format for essay questions: you will be asked to answer 2 (midterm) or 3 (final) out of 5 questions. These 5 questions will be selected by us from a list of up to 20 questions that we will give out at the lectures, at least a week in advance of the exam. Questions and grading will try to reward understanding rather than detailed factual knowledge. Of the material in the text, the most important topics will be the ones emphasized in the lectures, and the most important material within each topic is the material that is esssential to our understanding of the subject, rather than specific facts. Answers will require thoughtful consideration of text and lectures. Feel free to help me (and yourself) by providing me with candidate questions that you think would be appropriate for inclusion in the exam. I expect to use only a small proportion of questions that are submitted this way, but formulating (and answering) questions is in any case a productive way of organizing high-level study.
SCHEDULE (TENTATIVE)
Week 1 Tuesday: The problem of perception
Week 1 Thursday: How the retinal image is formed
Week 2 Tuesday: Lecture topic: optical limitations on the quality of vision
Week 2 Thursday: Retinal organization
Lecture topic: How photoreceptors
respond to light
Week 3 Tuesday: Functional organization of
the retina: receptive fields
Lecture topic: Why isn't vision
perfect? Resolution and receptive fields
Week 3 Thursday: Light
and Dark adaptation: how sensitivity is regulated
Week 4 Tuesday:
Color vision: Why we are
all partially color blind
Week 4 Thursday: Physiological Basis of Color
Appearance
Lecture topic: Color and lightness constancy
Week 5 Tuesday: Primary visual cortex and form vision
Week 5 Thursday: Higher cortical areas and form
vision
Lecture topic: Parallel streams and functional
specialization in the cortex
Week 6 Tuesday:
TBA
Week 6 Thursday: MIDTERM
Week 7 Tuesday: Spatial frequency representation
Week 7 Thursday: Physiological Basis of Depth Perception
Week 8 Tuesday:
Constancies and
Illusions
Week 8 Thursday: Motion
Week 9 Tuesday: Hearing and the ear PAPER DUE
Week 9 Thursday:
TBA
Week 10 Tuesday:
Touch and Pain, Taste and Smell
Lecture topic: The Symbolic Representation and its
Computation
MIDTERM: Tentatively Thursday, 13 February, Week 6 (in class)
FINAL: as in schedule of classes.
Additional recommended reading: general
The text will not be terribly challenging to those who have already done Psych 102. I will distribute copies of a few other readings during the quarter as they are relevant. There are no other required readings, but if you want to do well (and still more, if you are keen to advance your understanding of the subject) you will want to read further. For a start, anyone who hasn’t completed Psych 102 might find it useful to look over a more introductory (Psych 102 or equivalent) text for review of background. Two good examples:
R. Sekuler and R.Blake, Visual Perception, Knopf, 1985
E.B.Goldstein, Sensation and Perception,
T.N.Cornsweet, Visual Perception, Academic Press, 1970 is that rarity: a thinking person’s textbook. Fun, but limited to low levels of visual processing that can be understood in physiological (or at least in mechanistic) terms.
Richard Gregory, Eye and Brain,
S. E. Palmer, Vision Science: From Photons to Phenomenology, MIT 1999 is an excellent and comprehensive survey of our understanding of visual perception, encompassing phenomenological and cognitive as well as physiological viewpoints.
Useful for a more advanced and up to date, mathematically oriented survey of most of the course material: Wandell B.A. Foundations of Vision. Sinauer Associates Inc., 1995.
Still more advanced, but useful for getting into current
issues in preparing papers, are the proceedings of recent scientific
symposia:L. Spillmann & J.S. Werner (Eds.) Visual Perception: The
Neurophysiological Foundations. Academic Press 1990 and C. Blakemore (ed.).
Vision: Coding and Efficiency,
Recommended reading: specific topics
Other books recommended for a clear and comprehensive account of part of the material:
P.K. Kaiser and R.M.Boynton, Human Color Vision, Optical Society of
D. Marr, Vision, Freeman, 1982 is the most influential book on vision written this century, outlining what has become known as the "computational" approach, which unites the artificial intelligence and physiological points of view on vision. Especially good on stereo.
Chapter 4 of The Computational Brain, by Pat Churchland and Terry Sejnowski, is a good briefer treatment along Marr's lines, again concentrating on depth and 3D shape.
R. W. Rodieck, The First Steps in Seeing, Sinauer, 1998. is a challenging in its rigor and attention to detail, but it is written clearly so that an interested and thoughtful reader can understand it without much prior knowledge. Focus is heavily on early stages in vision, mainly the eye and the retina. Complements Zeki, where the focus is on cortex.
D.B. Dusenbery, Sensory Ecology, Freeman 1992 is an interesting survey of sensory processes in animals.
David M. Regan, Human Perception of Objects, Sinauer, 2000 discusses in some depth the early visual processing of spatial form defined by luminance, color, texture, motion, and binocular disparity.
Some student presentations
presentations05\AaronGanglion
Cells.ppt
presentations05\AndreaLaser
Eye Surgery.ppt
presentations05\CathyVisionTherapy.ppt
presentations05\DanEvolution
of the Eye.ppt
presentations05\DusanSound
Compression.ppt
presentations05\EricDepth
Perception.ppt
presentations05\jenniferglaucoma.ppt
presentations05\MichaelSound
Localization of Humans.ppt
presentations05\RachelHearing.ppt
presentations05\Ryan05Evolution
of multiple retinal rod pigmentation.ppt
presentations05\KamilleILLUSIONS.ppt
A few of the many useful Web resources: