Advanced Perception, Fall 2012

COURSE SYLLABUS 
Advanced Perception 
NEURL-UA.302.003 
PSYCH-UA.300.006 

Fall 2012

Tuesdays & Thursdays: 11:00 am - 12:15
Fridays: 12:30-1:45 
Meyer Hall (6 Washington Place), room 815

Last updated: Dec 11, 2012

Objective and format

The objective of this course is to master the fundamental facts and concepts of perceptual psychology and sensory neuroscience. This is an interdisciplinary field of science, crossing the boundaries between psychology, biology, physics and engineering. This course is intended for neural science majors and psychology majors that are on track for careers in science and medicine. This course is also appropriate for students in the psychology masters degree program. The course covers the same material as Perception (PSYCH-UA.22) but at a faster pace and in more depth, and with a focus on research. Hence, you can get credit for either this course or PSYCH-UA.22, not both.

The weekly discussion sessions (on Fridays) will be organized like a journal-club. A research paper will be assigned for each session. Attendance and participation are required. You are required to read all the papers and contribute to the discussion. To aid preparation, you must prepare answers to some questions for each of the papers. Print your answers and hand them in at the beginning of each discussion session.

Grading

There will be a midterm and a final exam. The midterm will assess your understanding of the material covered during the first half of the semester and the final will cover material from the second half of the semester.

The exams will cover material from the lectures that is not necessarily in the book, as well as material from the book that is not covered in the lectures. The on-line lecture notes and lecture slides are the best place to start when studying for the midterm and final.

Your grade will be determined by: midterm (40%), final (40%), discussion sessions (20%). Final letter grades will be determined by a curve equal to the distribution of other classes at this level at NYU.

Practice exams from 2006 (for PSYCH-UA.22):
Midterm 1
Midterm 1 answers
Midterm 2
Midterm 2 answers
Final
Final answers

 Text book and additional readings

The text book is:

 Snowden R, Thompson P, & Troscianko T, Basic Vision: An Introduction to Visual Perception (2nd edition, paperback). Oxford University Press, 2012.

 The book should be available in the bookstore. You can also get it online.

Additional readings are available online through the links provided in the schedule below. These include a chapter from another introductory textbook (Goldstein, Sensation and Perception, 8th edition, Wadsworth, 2007), some chapters from an advanced textbook (Wandell, Foundations of Vision, Sinauer, 1995), some handouts/lecture notes, and some research papers. Some of these additional readings might be difficult for you. Don't worry about it. Just read them and do the best you can. We'll go through all of it in class.

Schedule (under construction)

Date	Topic	Reading	Lecture slides and notes
9/4	Introduction	Snowden Ch. 0	Lecture notes Lecture slides
9/6	The brain	Snowden Ch. 12	Lecture notes Lecture slides
9/7	Journal Club	Kaufman & Kaufman (2000)
9/11	Neuroimaging	Snowden Ch. 12; Small & Heeger (in press)	Lecture notes Lecture slides
9/13	Psychophysics	Snowden Ch. 12	Lecture notes Lecture slides
9/14	Journal Club	Quiroga et al (2009)
9/18	Signal Detection Theory	Snowden Ch. 12; Signal detection theory lecture notes
9/20	Sound and the ear	Goldstein Ch. 11 (available on Blackboard under Course Documents)	Lecture notes: sound & the ear Lecture notes: frequency tuning & pitch Lecture slides: sound Lecture slides: ear & frequency tuning
9/21	Journal Club	Herrmann et al (2010)
9/25	Linear systems theory	Linear systems theory lecture notes	Lecture slides
9/27	Retina	Snowden Ch. 1	Lecture notes: eye Lecture notes: retina Lecture slides: light adaptation Lecture slides
9/28	Journal Club	Nirenberg & Pandarinath (2012)
10/2	Retinal ganglion cells	Snowden Ch. 2	Lecture notes Lecture slides
10/4	Brightness	Snowden Ch. 2	Lecture notes Lecture slides
10/5	Journal Club	Schiller et al (1990)
10/9	LGN & V1	Snowden Ch. 3	Lecture notes Lecture slides
10/11	LGN & V1 (continued)	Wandell, Ch. 6	Lecture notes (same as above)
10/12	Journal Club	Perna et al (2005)
10/16	No class
10/18	V1 part II	Carandini & Heeger (2011)	Lecture slides
10/19	Review for midterm
10/23	Midterm exam Answer key
10/25	Spatial vision	Snowden Ch. 4	Lecture notes Lecture slides
10/26	Center for Brain Imaging tour and demo (room 156)
11/8	Color part I	Snowden Ch. 5	Lecture notes Lecture slides
11/9	No class
11/13	Color part II	Wandell Ch. 4; Wandell Ch. 9	Lecture notes (same as above) Lecture slides
11/15	Visual pathways	Snowden Ch. 11; Wandell et al (2007)	Lecture notes Lecture slides
11/16	Journal Club	Freeman & Simoncelli (2011)
11/20	No class
11/22	No class
11/23	No class
11/27	Motion part I	Snowden Ch. 6	Lecture notes Lecture slides
11/29	Motion part II	Wandell Ch. 10	Lecture notes (same as above) Lecture slides
11/30	Journal Club	Salzman et al (1990)
12/4	Depth, size & shape	Snowden Ch. 7	Lecture notes Lecture slides
12/6	Attention & awareness part I	Snowden Chs. 9 & 11	Lecture notes Lecture slides
12/7	Journal Club	Driver et al (1992)
12/11	Attention & awareness part II	Palmer (1995); Reynolds & Heeger (2009)	Lecture notes & slides (same as above)
12/13	Recognition	Snowden Ch. 10	Lecture notes Lecture slides
12/14	Review for final
12/18	Final exam (10am -11:50pm)

david.heeger@nyu.edu