BCS 505

Perceptual and Motor Systems

WF 10:30 – 11:45

Meliora 269 (the Kresge room)

 

Coordinator: David Knill

                              Meliora 275

                              275-4597

 

Office hours:  Thursday, 12:30 – 2:00

 

Reading material:

 

There is no text for the class. Lecturers will assign reading material in the form of book chapters and research articles prior to each class. Copies of these will be placed in a box for the class in the CVS mailroom. Every effort will be made to insure that copies of the papers will be in the box by the time of the class immediately preceding the class for which the readings are due. When possible, electronic versions of the papers (e.g. in PDF format) will be placed on the course web site.

 

Requirements:

 

Students are required to attend all lectures and are expected to have done the reading for the class.  There will be two exams and a final paper.

 

Exams:

 

The class will have two exams, one on Oct. 20 and one on Dec. 12. The final exam is not cumulative and both exams contribute equally to the final grade. Exams will be "take home" and must be turned in by 12:00 noon the following day. You should write your exams on the computer and e-mail them to me.

 

Final paper:

 

You will write a 15 page (double-spaced) critical paper on a topic of your choice to be turned in at the end of the term.

 

Grades:

 

Each exam will carry 30% of your final grade. The final paper will be worth 30% of your grade. The remaining 10% of the grade will be based on class participation – attendance, involvement in class discussion, etc..

 

Attendance:

 

Much of the material to be learned in the class can only be learned by attending the lectures. Attendance is therefore critical to the success of the class. 1/2 a letter grade will be deducted for each class that you miss without good reason and without informing the coordinator in a timely manner.

 

Schedule:

 

Sept. 3                        Overview and organization

 

Sept.  8,10                Overview of visual system and visual coding (Knill)

 

Sept. 15                     Perceptual organization – psychophysics and modeling (Knill)

 

Sept. 17                     Perceptual organization – neurophysiology (Merigan)

 

Sept. 22, 24             Depth perception (Knill)

 

Sept. 29                    Depth perception - cue integration (Jacobs)

 

Oct. 1                          Multi-sensory integration (Pouget)

 

Oct. 6                         Object recognition (Knill)

 

Oct. 8                         Face recognition (Knill)

 

Oct. 13, 15                Perception and action, steering, locomotion (Knill / Duffy)

 

Oct. 20                       Mid-term exam

 

Oct. 27, 29               Visual development (Aslin)

 

Nov.   3, 5                Perceptual and motor skill learning (Lee)

 

Nov. 10, 12              Vision in natural tasks (Hayhoe)

 

Nov. 17                      Neural control of movement (Schieber)

 

Nov. 19, Dec.1        Visual control of hand movements (Knill)

 

Dec. 3, 8                   Attention – psychophysics and behavior (Bavelier)

 

Dec. 10                      Attention – neurophysiology (Lee)

 

Dec. 12                      Final Exam