Symposium: Perceptual Organization in Vision: Behavioral and Neural Perspectives, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA

Investigators

Abstract

Project: BCS 9983241 PI: Behrmann, M. The project is to hold a symposium at Carnegie-Mellon University in June, 2000 on the topic of Perceptual Organization in Vision. The aim of the symposium is to bring together researchers from a variety of disciplines to consider mechanisms of perceptual organization. Both behavioral and neural approaches will be considered. Behavioral approaches will include those arising from research in cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, and animal behavior studies. Neural approaches will include results from single neuron recording studies, from neuropsychological studies of patients with discrete lesions and from functional neuroimaging studies. Qualitative and computational approaches will also be incorporated. The following types of questions will be examined in the course of the symposium: What are the heuristics involved in perceptual organization? Are these predetermined and/or are they experience-dependent? Do they operate only feedforward or is the system interactive, combining bottom-up and topdown knowledge in deriving organizational structure? Do they operate "early" or "late" or is it perhaps more parallel than sequential? What is an object? What is the role of attention in perceptual organization? What specific neural mechanisms mediate perceptual organization? The general goal of the meeting will be to review the current state of the field from a multidisciplinary perspective by bringing together researchers who might not ordinarily exchange ideas, to provide the opportunity for junior scientists to interact with leaders in the field, to identify future research directions, and to disseminate the results broadly. The results of the symposium will be published as the 31st in the series of the Carnegie Cognition Symposium volumes.