CAREER: Computational Representations and Processes in Active Perception

Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA

Investigators

Abstract

This award supports the study of computational principles and neural mechanisms underlying active perception -- the active gathering of information to construct, update and improve a system's representation,knowledge and understanding of its environment. The PI will develop an integrated multidisciplinary research and educational program that utilizes techniques from computer and information science, system engineering, neuroscience and psychology to study how monkeys and humans use eye movement to actively analyze visual scenes in different visual tasks and how the neural machinery and representations are transformed in these processes. To prove the theoretical framework he is developing, he will build an adaptive active vision system that will learn to see. Along with the research, he will enhance the traditional computer science and computer vision curriculum at Carnegie Mellon by introducing problems,theories and practice from neuroscience and neural computation to computer science classrooms and laboratories to prepare a new generation of interdiscciplinary computer scientists for the new challenges in computational biology.