2008 — 2009 |
Pasternak, Tatiana [⬀] Tadin, Duje |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Blurring the Borders Between Vision, Cognition and Action Symposium @ University of Rochester
The interactions between vision, cognition and action are much more extensive than previously believed. This is the central motivation for the 26th Symposium of the Center for Visual Science (CVS), entitled "Blurring the Borders Between Vision, Cognition and Action," scheduled for May 29-31, 2008 at the University of Rochester. Twenty researchers who work with neurophysiological, anatomical, behavioral or computational perspectives will participate. Topics will include: Visual and Cognitive Circuits, Visual Signals in Cognitive Circuits, Cognitive Influences on Visual Processing (including attention, context and learning) and Vision During Action. To attract younger scientists, ten travel fellowships will be awarded to graduate students or postdoctoral students who will present their work in a poster session.
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2010 — 2014 |
Tadin, Duje |
R01Activity Code Description: To support a discrete, specified, circumscribed project to be performed by the named investigator(s) in an area representing his or her specific interest and competencies. |
Mechanisms of Visual Motion Perception @ University of Rochester
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Visual processing faces two conflicting demands: integration and segmentation. Integration is required by inherently noisy visual signals, while segmentation is needed to extract vital information from spatiotemporal variations in visual input. An understanding of the interplay between these two mechanisms will reveal fundamentals of visual processing and also enable insights into functional roles of segmentation processes. In motion perception, the PI's recent work demonstrated that spatial integration of motion signals is not fixed, but critically depends on basic visual factors such as contrast, with spatial integration giving way to spatial suppression as stimulus visibility increases. The overarching goal of this proposal is to investigate the neural mechanisms involved in this adaptive integration/segregation of motion signals, and to elucidate their role in the segmentation of objects from moving backgrounds. The key property of spatial suppression is impaired motion perception of large, high-contrast stimuli. In Aim 1, we will determine if and how this suppressive mechanism affects visual and oculomotor processing. Answering this question will constrain possible neural correlates of spatial suppression and, along with Aim 2, provide a test for the hypothesis linking spatial suppression to surround suppression in area MT. Substantiating this link will allow the attribution of links between spatial suppression and motion segregation (Aims 2 &3) to the involvement of MT surround suppression. In Aim 2, we will seek direct evidence about neural correlates of spatial suppression by impairing processing in MT and early visual areas with TMS. We expect that a disruption of neural mechanisms critically involved in spatial suppression will allow normally suppressed motion signals to reach perception. Concurrently, we will also determine whether the same stimulation that impairs spatial suppression also disrupts motion segregation. In Aim 3, we test the hypothesis that spatial suppression directly enables rapid segregation of moving objects by suppressing background motion signals. Here, the role of spatial suppression in motion segregation is conceptualized as a coarse, but rapid, region-based segmentation process. This hypothesis predicts that variations in spatial suppression (and, thus, in the visibility of background motion) should predict corresponding changes in motion segregation and vice versa. Exploiting different experimental approaches, we will test this prediction by utilizing stimulus manipulations, individual differences and perceptual learning to produce variations in either spatial suppression or motion segregation. One focus will be on older adults, who are known to exhibit weak spatial suppression. We will determine whether this abnormality predicts motion segregation deficits and whether age-related deficits in spatial suppression can be reversed by the perceptual learning of motion segregation. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The knowledge of mechanisms underlying spatial suppression and motion segregation will contribute to the understanding of age-related changes in these two basic visual processes. Moreover, understanding how these age-related deficits can be alleviated through perceptual learning might lead to the development of viable interventions.
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2014 |
Tadin, Duje |
R21Activity Code Description: To encourage the development of new research activities in categorical program areas. (Support generally is restricted in level of support and in time.) |
Kinesthetic Influences On Visual Motion Perception in Normal and Older Adults @ University of Rochester
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): How the brain integrates kinesthetic information about self-generated movements with other sensory signals caused by those movements is largely unknown. While there is a substantial and growing body of research on how the brain integrates multiple sensory signals generated by objects and events in the world, much less is known about how the brain integrates kinesthetic and visual motion signals. Even less is known about how the interactions between kinesthesis and vision change with age. The current proposal addresses these gaps in our understanding, specifically aiming to elucidate how kinesthetic signals generated by one's hand motion influence visual motion processing and how those interactions change with age - a question of clinical significance because of the known age-related deficits in visual motion processing. The first aim focuses on an aspect of multisensory integration that is often overlooked - how the brain determines whether or not, or how strongly, to couple signals from different modalities (most current research focuses on how the brain weights different signals when they are perfectly coupled). We will measure how subjects adapt their inter-modal coupling to changes in signal reliability and compare subjects' performance to that of optimal Bayesian models that are parameterized by estimates of individual subjects' sensory uncertainty. The models provide a tool for testing the hypothesis that aging leads to changes in multimodal integration mechanisms themselves, by allowing us to discount the effects of changes in unimodal signal uncertainty on older subjects' behavior. The second aim will study whether and how the brain uses kinesthetic signals to support and enhance early visual processing and how this changes with age. In one set of experiments, we will test the hypothesis that predictive signals associated with kinesthesis enhance the detectability of congruent visual motion signals and measure the tuning of this enhancement to conflicts between the signals. Another set of experiments will test a strong version of the interaction hypothesis - that kinesthesis can be solely sufficient to generate visual motion percepts. Here, we will expand on a phenomenon discovered in our preliminary studies - that many subjects report seeing visual motion embedded in a white noise field optically collocated with their moving hand. To quantify the strength of generated motion percepts, we will experimentally determine the real visual motions that perceptually match reported phantom motions. We will further explore this kinesthetic enhancement of visual processing to determine whether the underlying interactions between kinesthesis and visual motion processing are multiplicative or additive. A final set of experiments will test the hypothesis that the brain uses kinesthetic signals to aid in motion segmentation by both enhancing the motion signal from a moving target when the hand moves the target and by suppressing the background when the hand moves it. We will measure age-related changes for each of these three forms of interaction between kinesthesis and vision; matching signal uncertainty for young and older subjects to isolate changes that are result from age-related changes in multisensory integration mechanisms.
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2014 — 2015 |
Tadin, Duje |
T32Activity Code Description: To enable institutions to make National Research Service Awards to individuals selected by them for predoctoral and postdoctoral research training in specified shortage areas. |
Training Grant in Vision Science @ University of Rochester
Twenty one faculty of the Center for Visual Science (CVS) at the University of Rochester request renewal of support for a pre-doctoral and postdoctoral training program that emphasizes two broadly defined areas of vision research - research into central visual processing using psychophysical, physiological, and computational approaches and research in physiological optics using advanced optical techniques to study both basic questions about retinal processing and for translational research on eye disease. Training is interdisciplinary, drawing particularly on the unique technical and intellectual resources of the Center. It covers a broad range of basic and clinical problems in vision, but emphasizes approaches that link visual performance to underlying neural mechanisms. We request each year support for six pre-doctoral trainees, who will generally enter the program through Brain and Cognitive Science, Computer Science, Neuroscience, Biomedical Engineering, or the Institute of Optics. Students take core courses plus advanced seminars in visual science, augmented by courses from the department through which they entered the program. They attend regular colloquia, research meetings and the biannual CVS Symposium and Fall Vision Meeting. Concurrently with course work, students complete research projects in CVS preceptor labs We request each year support for one postdoctoral fellow. Postdoctoral training has a heavy emphasis on research. The training grant will be used especially to draw talented scientists from other areas into vision research. We are also requesting stipends for eight summer undergraduate research fellows to participate in an ongoing program that we have developed to introduce students to research in vision science and recruit students into graduate training in visual science.
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2016 — 2021 |
Huxlin, Krystel R (co-PI) [⬀] Tadin, Duje |
T32Activity Code Description: To enable institutions to make National Research Service Awards to individuals selected by them for predoctoral and postdoctoral research training in specified shortage areas. |
Training in Vision Science @ University of Rochester
Twenty-eight faculty of the Center for Visual Science (CVS) at the University of Rochester request renewal of support for a pre-doctoral and postdoctoral training program that emphasizes four broadly defined areas of vision research: (1) Advanced optical technology for vision correction and retinal imaging, (2), cell biology of the normal and diseased eye, (3) neural mechanisms of vision and (4) vision in behavior. Training faculty have extensive cross-campus and cross-department collaborations, a strong record of mentoring and high research funding levels. Training is interdisciplinary, drawing particularly on the unique technical and intellectual resources of CVS. It covers a broad range of basic and clinical problems in vision but emphasizes approaches that link visual performance to underlying biological mechanisms. The program has a strong record of trainee productivity, PhD student retention and fast average time to PhD. Similarly, postdoctoral trainees overwhelmingly pursue scientific careers, with significant numbers entering tenure-track positions in academia. Trainees have a good record of subsequent individual training and research funding, as well as successful research and research-related career paths. The program also has a good record of recruiting, training and career placement for trainees from under-represented minority groups. For our renewal application, we request support for 5 pre-doctoral trainees per year, who will generally enter the program through the Departments of Brain and Cognitive Science, Biomedical Engineering, the Neuroscience Graduate Program and the Institute of Optics. Students will take core courses plus advanced seminars in visual science, augmented by courses from the departments through which they entered the program. Concurrently with course work, students complete research projects in CVS preceptor labs. Finally, we also request support for two postdoctoral fellows per year. Postdoctoral training has a heavy emphasis on research performance, productivity and communication. All trainees take part in topical workshops, special topics seminars, regular colloquia, research talk series, the CVS retreat, and the biannual CVS Symposium.
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