Mathematical Sciences Research Institute - Emphasis Week on Neurobiological Vision

Nervous systems have evolved impressive abilities to extract useful information about the environment from images. Jumping spiders use their eight-eyed visual systems to detect prey, discriminate objects, and navigate;most mammals can readily segment moving objects in a scene and estimate velocities to mediate complex visuo-motor tasks; and primates can readily infer the 3D surface structure of their world from two dimensional images. How are these tasks - all of which lie beyond the current abilities of modern machine vision systems - accomplished by neural circuits in the brain?
This week will bring together a combination of experimentalists and theorists who are attempting to understand the neural mechanisms of visual perception.

This workshop is jointly sponsored by MSRI and the Redwood Neuroscience Institute. The Tuesday, February 8, 2005 session will be held at RNI.

Because space at RNI is limited, attendees should apply in advance for Tuesday's session only by sending an email to Teri Fry tfry@rni.org .

There will be a reception after the session at RNI, Tuesday, Feb. 8 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View.

Workshop Schedule

Monday, February 7
9:00-10:00 Pam Reinagel (UC San Diego) “Coding in LGN and implications for V1”
10:00-10:15 Discussion
10:15-10:45 -- Morning Tea -- 6th floor
10:45-11:45 Jon Touryan (UC Berkeley) “Analysis of V1 complex cell receptive fields with complex stimuli”
11:45-12:00 Discussion
12:00- 2:00 -- Lunch --
2:00- 3:00 Matteo Carandini (Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute) “Receptive fields and suppressive fields in the early visual system”
3:00- 3:15 Discussion
3:15- 3:45 -- Afternoon Tea -- 6th floor
3:45- 4:45 Charles Gray (MSU Bozeman) “Multi-neuron response dynamics in cat V1 to the presentation of time-varying natural scenes”
4:45- 5:00 Discussion

Tuesday, February 8 (RNI)
8:30- 9:30 Bus to RNI
9:45-10:45 Jack Gallant (UC Berkeley) “Neural Coding Beyond V1”
10:45-11:00 Discussion
11:00-11:15 -- Break --
11:15-12:15 Greg DeAngelis (Washington University) “Roles of Area MT in Stereo Vision”
12:15-12:30 Discussion
12:30- 1:30 -- lunch --
1:30- 2:15 Don Glaser (UC Berkeley) “The role of Cortical Noise and Stochastic Resonance in Some Illusory Motion Percepts”
2:15- 2:30 Discussion
2:30- 3:30 David Mumford (Brown University) -- Open discussion on the role of inhibitory neurons and methods for recording from large numbers of neurons.
3:30- 4:00 -- Break --
4:00- 5:00 Jeff Hawkins (RNI) “How the Cortex Works”
5:00- 5:15 Discussion
6:00- 9:00 Reception/Dinner at the Computer History Museum, Mountain View
9:00- 10:00 Bus to Berkeley

Wednesday, February 9
9:00-10:00 Mike Lewicki (Carnegie-Mellon University) “Density Component Models for Learning Hierarchical Structure in Natural Images”
10:00-10:15 Discussion
10:15-10:45 -- Morning Tea -- 6th floor
10:45-11:45 Terry Sejnowski (Salk Institute) "Multiplicative Mixers in Natural Images"
11:45-12:00 Discussion
12:00- 2:00 -- lunch --
2:00- 3:00 Steven Zucker (Yale) “Frenet Geometry, Horizontal Connections, and Early Vision”
3:00- 3:15 Discussion
3:15-3:45 -- Afternoon Tea -- 6th floor
3:45- 4:45 Stu Geman (Brown University) “Invariance and Selectivity in the Ventral Visual Pathway”
4:45- 5:00 Discussion

Thursday, February 10
9:00-10:00 Tai-Sing Lee (Carnegie-Mellon University) “Cortical mechanisms for visual inference”
10:00-10:15 Discussion
10:15-10:45 -- Morning Tea -- 6th floor
10:45-11:45 Antonio Torralba (MIT) “How scene context guides attention”
11:45-12:00 Discussion
12:00- 2:00 -- lunch --
2:00- 2:45 Bin Yu (UC Berkeley) “A better statistical model for spike trains”
2:45- 3:00 Discussion
3:00- 3:45 Charles Anderson (Washington University) “Spatial-frequency tiling of V1 simple cells is predicted by signal-to-noise considerations.”
3:45- 4:00 Discussion
4:00- 4:30 -- Afternoon Tea -- 6th floor
4:30- 5:15 Bruno Olshausen (UC Davis/RNI) “Sparse coding and inference in visual cortex”
5:15- 5:30 Discussion

Friday, February 11
Working groups and discussion

Currently Available Videos

Pamela Reinagel , Coding in LGN and Implications for V1. February 7,2005, 09:00 AM to 10:00 AM
Jonathan Touryan , Analysis of V1 Complex Cell Receptive Fields with Complex Stimuli" February 7,2005, 10:45 AM to 11:45 AM
Matteo Carandini , Receptive Fields and supressive Fields in the Early Visual System February 7,2005, 02:00 PM to 03:00 PM
Charles Gray , Multi-Neuron response Dynamics in Cat V1 to the Presentation of Time-Varying Natural Scenes. February 7,2005, 03:45 PM to 04:45 PM
Jack Gallant , Neural Coding Beyond V1 February 8,2005, 09:45 AM to 10:45 AM
Gregory DeAngelis , Roles of Area MT in Stereo Vision. February 8,2005, 11:15 AM to 12:15 PM
Don Glaser , The Role of Cortical Noise and Stochastic Resonance in Some Illusionary Motion Percepts. February 8,2005, 01:30 PM to 02:45 PM
David Mumford , Open Discussion on the Role of Inhibitory Neurons and Methods of Recording from Large Numbers of Neurons. February 8,2005, 02:30 PM to 03:30 PM
Jeff Hawkins , How the Cortex Works. February 8,2005, 04:00 PM to 05:00 PM
Mike Lewicki , Density Component Models for Learning Heirarchical structure in Natural Images. February 9,2005, 09:00 AM to 10:00 AM
Terrence Sejnowski , Multiplicative Mixers in Natural Images. February 9,2005, 10:45 AM to 11:45 AM
Steven Zucker , Frenet Geometry, Horizontal Connections, and Early Vision. February 9,2005, 02:00 PM to 03:00 PM
Stuart Geman , Invariance and Selectivity in the Ventral Visual Pathway February 9,2005, 03:45 PM to 04:45 PM
Tai Sing Lee , Cortical Mechanisms for Visual Interference. February 10,2005, 09:00 AM to 10:00 AM
Antonio Torralba , How Scene Context Guides Attention. February 10,2005, 10:15 AM to 11:45 AM
Bin Yu , A Better Staistical Model for Spike Trains February 10,2005, 02:00 PM to 02:45 PM
Charles Anderson , Spatial-Frequency Tiling of V1 Simple Cells is Predicted by Signal-to-Noise Considerations. February 10,2005, 03:00 PM to 03:45 PM
Bruno Olshausen , Sparse Coding amd Inference in Visual Cortex. February 10,2005, 04:00 PM to 05:15 PM

You can find videos of other workshops and events on our VMath - Streaming Video page.

For more information:
Questions about this workshop should be sent either by email to

296@msri.org

or by regular mail to:

Emphasis Week on Neurobiological Vision Mathematical Sciences Research Institute 17 Gauss Way, Berkeley, CA 94720-5070. USA

The Institute is committed to the principles of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action.

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