Ken Nakayama - US grants

The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Foundation is a center for research in vision and oculomotility, currently awarded $3.2M in PHS grants (recommended and committed). These grants fund studies of eye movements in humans and monkeys, and studies of human vision that could be improved or extended with eye movement monitoring. However, except for a scleral search coil system (the coil is only wearable for short periods, requires an available physician, and is not tolerated by some subjects), our Foundation has no facilities for accurate 2-dimensional recording of human eye move- ments. Indeed, apart from the Purkinje-image Eyetracker, no non- contacting 2-D eye position recording method with reasonable spatial and temporal resolution is available. The Eyetracker Experimental Station would provide a centralized facility for 2-dimensional, binocular human eye position monitoring, eye-position-contingent display generation, and data collection, analysis, storage, and distribution. The monitoring, computation, and display system would have 1 min arc spatial resolution and 1 msec synchronous temporal resolution over a 24 deg by 24 deg binocular field. Powerful data analysis would be supported, as well as data transmission to other systems. The system would consist of: an SRI binocular Double Purkinje-image Eyetracker; high resolution, fast phospher, vector display scopes; a Masscomp MC-5500 multiprocessor lab computer with RTR experiment control software (both supplied by SKERF); a Masscomp graphics terminal with data analysis and display software; Ethernet links to three remote systems. Projects scheduled to use the system include: eye movements and velocity discrimination; vergence and conjunctive search; visual motion processing and smooth pursuit; pursuit plasticity; naso- temporal asymmetries in motion processing; nystagmus and contrast sensitivity; convergence and stereo matching; binocular saccadic plasticity.

DESCRIPTION (provided by the applicant): It has been assumed in the study of vision that there are distinct sub-systems or modules. In the field of visual object recognition this is most clearly evident in the question--Are faces special? This can be divided into two research questions. (1) Does the processing of faces operate according to the same or different computational principles as the processing of other objects? (2) are there a separate anatomical regions in the visual system for the processing of facial images, distinct from the processing of visual objects? To address these fundamental issues, we turn to visual psychophysics which has proven itself, both as a method to isolate functional subsystems and as a way to link such systems to underlying neural substrates. We rely on two new procedures to evaluate holistic processing: spatial summation and categorical perception (CP) noise. We will use psychophysical procedures to investigate the range and scope of holistic processing in the recognition personal identity and facial emotion. We will examine holistic processing under a range of stimulus conditions to better determine its characteristics, this includes varying spatial frequency and fragmenting the facial image. We will also determine whether holistic processing is present in highly practiced subordinate recognition tasks. We will also delineate the functional anatomy of face processing using fMRI and relying on variants of the face inversion effect to more clearly identify those parts of the brain that are participating in face-specific processes. We ask whether these areas will coincide with putative face and object areas. We will also use event related fMRI to see the co-localization of detection and recognition specific processes with face and object areas. We will also study face detection, developing a measure of holistic processing, thus enabling a comparison of holistic processing in both recognition and detection. WE will look for a dissociation of face detection and recognition processes in prosopagnosic patients and evidence for a subcortical component of face detection in blindsight patients.

Many researchers study how nonhuman animals see the world. To date, however, only certain types of comparative studies have been possible, given the limitations of animal learning and response capabilities. With funding from the National Science Foundation, Drs. Nakayama and Pepperberg at Harvard and Brandeis Universities will address questions about visual processing in Grey parrots. Taking advantage of Grey parrots' ability to mimic human speech, Pepperberg was able to train a Grey parrot to verbally respond to simple optical illusions (e.g., the Müller-Lyer illusion, in which two lines appear to humans to vary in length but in reality do not). The parrot?s responses indicated that it also perceived the illusions. Drs. Nakayama and Pepperberg will train additional birds to learn to label various colors and shapes using the sounds of English speech. The current project will then examine whether parrots, like people, can (a) complete the shape of a partially covered object (e.g., see a square partially occluded by a circle as still being a square), and (b) "see" objects that aren't actually there, like a triangle that seems to appear (to humans and primates) between three pac-man-like partial circles that are arranged in a triangular manner, something formally known as an "illusory contour" or "Kanizsa figure." One might expect a parrot to be able, for example, to infer the presence of a predator that isn't fully observable, but no one has been able to ask any nonhuman such questions directly. Future research will involve more complex tasks designed to study how birds pay attention to objects in their visual environment.

The underlying long-term goal of this research is to determine whether the tasks reveal differences in perceptual processing between birds and humans. Success in training the parrots will enable Drs. Nakayama and Pepperberg eventually to examine a broad range of visual tasks to determine which perceptual abilities share the same underlying mechanisms in birds and humans and which do not. Comparisons between these two species with very different brain sizes will allow us to understand which components of perception can be implemented with smaller scale neural architecture and which require greater brain size and/or complexity. The data will guide future comparisons with other species and provide insights into the structure and function of the human brain and may provide useful insights for the design of artificial visual processors.

STEM education provides both technical training and the development of cognitive skills, such as designing experiments, testing hypotheses, and analyzing data. While traditional STEM training is essential for developing a highly skilled technical workforce, the cognitive skills developed through this training are beneficial in almost every type of career. To provide cognitive skills training to undergraduates in psychology, who typically do not receive this type of education, this project will develop a computer program, named TELLab, that allows psychology students to design experiments and gather data using the internet. Using this program, students will have the opportunity to experience first hand the challenges of doing science, learning skills and concepts, and most importantly, formulating and solving problems of personal interest to them.

To this end, the proposal has three broadly defined goals: (1) Up-scaling and maturation of TELLab, so that it can handle hundreds of thousands of users, in countless numbers of classrooms, with students at all levels - all at the same time, (2) evaluation of TELLlab-based pedagogy in diverse settings, including evaluating STEM competencies in non-STEM students, particularly those in undergraduate psychology classes, and (3) advancing the effort to create an open source community of faculty and students across the nation to develop and sustain collective expertise. Through a collaborative partnership across a variety of institutions, TELLab modules will be developed and deployed in a variety of psychology courses. These modules will allow students to design experiments and test hypotheses, providing immersion in the cognitive skills that are at the core of STEM education. Course instructors and participating students will be evaluated to identify and assess the factors that influence student experiences and learning.