Neural Basis of Visual Perception
Organizer
Chun-I Yeh, Professor, Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University, Taiwan.
Speakers
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Abstract
How does the primary visual cortex encode elementary features such as contrast, spatial frequency, and color? By using both electrophysiological and imaging techniques, this section will try to provide a comprehensive picture of recent findings on neuronal coding of these basic characters at primary and secondary cortical levels, its possible mechanisms, its interaction with other modalities, and its possible role in visual perception. The section will also question how these encoding schemes are related to other stages of visual processing.
Day 2: 08:30 – 10:30, July 14, 2017.
Binocular Depth Perception
Christopher Tyler, Professor, Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute, America. /Division of Optometry, City University of London, UK.
Dhanraj Vishwanath, Professor, University of St. Andrews, Scotland, UK.
Ichiro Fujita, Professor, Osaka University / Center for Information and Neural Networks, Japan.
Izumi Ohzawa, Professor, Osaka University / Center for Information and Neural Networks, Japan.
Almost all of our actions are take place in specific relationships to our perception of the three-dimensional structure of the world we inhabit. The goal of this symposium is to present recent studies and analysis on the functional organization of binocular disparity processing and its integration with the array of other depth cues that contribute to our perception of the three-dimensional world. These studies range from the human perception of the variety of cues to depth structure and their processing dynamics to the advanced analysis of the dynamics of the local binocular disparity information in primary visual cortex.
Day 2: 13:30 – 15:30, July 14, 2017.
New Inquiries into Vision, Attention, and Awareness
Li Jingling, Professor, Graduate Institute of Biomedical Sciences, China Medical University, Taiwan.
Marcia Grabowecky, Professor, Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, America.
Jing-Ling Li, Professor, Graduate Institute of Biomedical Sciences, China Medical University, Taiwan.
Satoshi Shioiri, Professor, Research Institute of Electrical Communication, Tohoku University, Japan.
Naotsugu Tsuchiya, Professor, School of Psychological Sciences, Monash University, Australia.
Dominique Lamy, Professor, The School of Psychology Sciences /The Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University, France.
Po-Jang (Brown) Hsieh, Professor, Duke-NUS Medical School, Brain & Consciousness Lab.
How visual inputs being effectively processed is one of the hottest research questions. Recent progress on this issue includes (1) extended to the senses other than vision, (2) understanding of the processes without attention, and (3) distinction between processing depending on attention or consciousness. This symposium invited 5 distinctive researchers to present their serial studies on the related issues. The findings provide new inquiries into vision, attention, and awareness.
Attractiveness and Bodily Interactions at Implicit Levels-Reading Social Evaluation From Eyes and/or Bodily Interactions
Shinsuke Shimojo, Professor, California Institute of Technology, USA.
Hsin-I Liao, Senior Research Scientist, NTT Communication Science Laboratories, Japan.
Katsumi Watanabe, Professor, Waseda University / University of Tokyo, Japan.
Shao-Min(Sean) Hung, Professor, Neuroscience and Behavioral Disorders Program, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore.
Makio Kashino, Professor, NTT Communication Science Laboratories / Tokyo Institute of Technology / JST CREST, Japan.
We do social evaluation all the time. We like a particular person, but we may not know the actual reasons. We may give ‘explicit’ reasons but those could be post-hoc reconstructions (e.g., Johansson et al., 2005). In the current symposium, we convey an idea that social evaluation is affected by various ‘implicit’ factors – gaze/pupil and bodily synchrony on top of implicit visual processing. These factors were studied independently under different framework, but they are in fact closely related. First of all, we show evidences that preference decision making or attractiveness judgment is a dynamic process (Watanabe’s talk) that could be even formed unconsciously (Hung’s talk). Second, the decision/judgment formation could be reflected and affected by physiological responses such as gaze (Shimojo et al., 2003) or pupillary response (Liao’s talk). Finally, we demonstrate a practical approach that the preference and/or facial attractiveness judgment can be predicted by these physiological responses (Kashino’s talk).
Day 3: 08:30 – 10:30, July 15, 2017.
Stopping The Rise of myopia in Asia
Lothar Spillmann, Professor, University Hospital Freiburg, Germany.
Ian Morgan, Professor, Research School of Biology, Australian National University, Australia.
Regan Ashby, Professor, Health Research Institute, Faculty of Education, Science, Technology and Mathematics / University of Canberra, Canberra ACT 2617, Australia
Weizhong Lan, Aier Institute of Optometry and Vision Science, Aier School of Ophthalmology, Aier Eye Hospital Group, China.
Pei-Chang Wu, Director, Department of Pohthalmology, Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Taiwan.
Myopia (short-sightedness) is on the rise worldwide. In East and Southeast Asia, up to 90 per cent of young people between 6-16 yrs. require eyeglasses. Up to 20 percent are highly myopic, with a substantially increased risk of pathological myopia, irreversible visual impairment and blindness.
The numbers affected are staggering. Recent projections suggest that about 50% of the world’s population will be shortsighted by 2050. Of those, 10% will have high myopia, resulting in as many as 1 billion myopes worldwide and as many as 100 million high myopes in China alone.
The rapid changes must be due to powerful environmental factors as documented by vision science. Close-up work (reading) and poor lighting promote myopia development, while increased time outdoors (2 hours/day) slows it by stimulating retinal dopamine release and blocking excessive growth of the eyeball. Progression of myopia can be further slowed with low-dose atropine or specially designed lenses.
The immediate aim is to reduce the prevalence of high myopia. Only 4 years after new guidelines were introduced in Taiwan schools, the steep increase in myopia has been reversed. This is the first step in bringing high and pathological myopia under control. But the measures that have been shown to be effective must be put into practice by governments and their health and education authorities everywhere.
Day 3: 13:30 – 15:30, July 15, 2017.
Contemporary Questions in The Psychophysics of Spatial Vision
Tim S. Meese, Professor, School of Life and Health Sciences, Aston University, UK.
Chien-Chung Chen, Professor, Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University, Taiwan.
Mark A. Georgeson, Professor, School of Life & Health Sciences, Aston University, Birmingham, UK.
Josh Solomon, Professor, School od Health Sciences, Division of Optometry & Visual Sciences, City University of London, UK.
Visual perception begins with an image on the back of eye, pixelated by our receptors. We don’t see a collection of points of course, but a continuous coherent meaningful display of the outside world. One of the first processing stages in the journey from retina to seeing is the analysis of image contrast and features over space; we call this spatial vision. Spatial vision has been the bedrock of psychophysical enquiry into visual perception for the last forty years or more and during this time, numerous techniques, paradigms and models have been developed to investigate and describe human vision at contrast detection threshold and above. Here we shall review some of the major developments in the field looking both backwards and forwards to evaluate some of their strengths and weaknesses, to celebrate the success of the disciplined enquiry that has emerged, and to raise questions and issues for future research in the field.
Day 4: 08:30 – 10:30, July 16, 2017.
Understanding Individual Differences in Eye Movement Patterns
Janet Hsiao, Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
Roberto Caldara, Professor, Eye and Brain Mapping Laboratory (iBMLab), Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland.
Romina Palermo, Professor, School of Psychological Science, The University of Western Australia, Australia.
Antoni Chan, Professor, Department of Computer Science, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. / Institute of Behavioural Neuroscience, University College London, United Kingdom
In many daily life activities, eye movements provide a strong cue about the underlying cognitive processes. Hence, eye movement measures play an important role in many research fields related to human cognitive behavior. Recent research has reported substantial individual differences in eye movement patterns in visual tasks. These individual differences may reflect differences in cognitive styles or abilities and may consequently lead to different task performances. Findings on the associations between eye movement patterns and cognitive styles, performances, or abilities will provide valuable information on factors contributing to these individual differences and related cognitive deficits, and on how to improve people’s learning and performances. In this symposium, we will first illustrate how differences in culture, autistic traits, attention control, age, and cognitive abilities are associated with differences in eye movement patterns through examinations in face processing. We will then introduce how the related methodologies can be applied to the understanding of eye movement patterns in other tasks including video watching and decision making.
A New World in Primate Vision Research : The Marmoset as a Model Animal
Organizers
Elizabeth Zavitz, Research Fellow, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
Hsin-Hao Yu, Research Fellow, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
Alessandra Angelucci, Professor, University of Utah, USA.
Natalie Zeater, Director, University of Sydney, Australia.
Tetsuo Yamamori, Professor, RIKEN Brain Science Institute, Japan.
Maureen Hagan, Director, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
Jake Yates, Director, University of Rochester, USA.
The New World marmoset monkey is becoming a popular primate model in a range of biological sciences. In visual neuroscience in particular, the marmoset offers several key advantages for researchers. The marmoset has an elaborate visual cortex with an organisation that is broadly similar to that of other primates. However, its cortex is smooth and not convoluted as in other larger primates, leaving almost the entire cortex exposed on the dorsal surface. This makes it accessible to modern research techniques such as two-photon imaging, surface electrode recording, and optogenetics. The marmoset is suitable for developmental studies due to its accelerated reproductive cycles, and it can be trained to perform complex visual tasks. Furthermore, it is presently the only primate model with multiple established transgenic lines, which opens up the possibility of applying the powerful genetic techniques commonly found in rodent studies to a primate model.
This symposium will explore the breadth of vision research using the marmoset model. The speakers will highlight studies that focus on the cortical/sub-cortical circuits (Dr. Zeater) of the visual cortex, the plastic reorganisation of the cortex following lesions (Dr. Hagan), optogenetic manipulation (Prof. Angelucci) and two- photon imaging (Prof. Yamamori) of cortical activities, as well as the behaviour of the marmoset monkeys trained to perform visual tasks (Dr. Yates).
The multidisciplinary program should be appealing to the broad audience of APCV, with interests in animal psychophysics, brain mapping, electrophysiology, plasticity, and imaging. Our goal is not only to promote collaboration and communication between marmoset researchers, but also to create the opportunity for primate researchers to interact with the broader vision research community.
Day 4: 13:30 – 15:30, July 16, 2017.
Artificial Vision
Chuan-Chin Chiao, Professor & Director, Institute of Systems Neuroscience & Department of Life Science, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan.
Gregg Suaning, Professor, Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, University of South Wales, Australia.
Jun Ohta, Professor, Graduate School of Materials Science, Nara Institute of Science Technology, Japan.
Chung-Yu Wu, Professor, Department of Electronics Engineering, National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan.
Long-Sheng Fan, Professor, Department of Power Mechanical Engineering, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan.
Blindness afflicts millions of people worldwide. Although a number of approaches are currently being pursued in the hope of preventing blindness, once vision is totally lost, retinal transplantation and bioelectronic visual prosthesis are only two of the existing strategies for restoring vision. Several groups in past decade have developed electrical implants that can be attached directly to the retinas of patients suffering from retinal degeneration, and have shown promise of retinal prostheses that can be used clinically. In this symposium, leaders of retinal prosthesis around the world will present recent advances in artificial vision, and discuss major obstacles in improving these prosthetic devices.
Day 5: 08:30 – 10:30, July 17, 2017.
Visual Science and Its Outreach to General Public
Chiahuei Tseng, Associate Professor, Tohoku University.
Hsin-Ni Ho, Senior Research Scientist, NTT Communication Laboratories.
Junji Watanabe, Senior Research Scientist, NTT Communication Laboratories.
Shigeo Yoshida, Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo, Japan.
Hui-Chuan Chen, National Museum of Natural Science, Taichung, Taiwan.
Hsin-Drow Huang, National Museum of Natural Science, Taichung, Taiwan.
The goal of the workshop is to evoke the importance of scientific outreach to general public, in particular in the aspects of getting research funding, collecting user data and promoting scientific education. This workshop will invite researchers about current status of research fund for outreach and data collection during public exhibition, and a science museum staff to provide insight into these three aspects. As a practice/realization of these notions, the organizers will introduce a new type of outreach activity that will be run during the APCV conference. This outreach activity takes the form of “escape room,” which aims to create a unique interactive adventure using puzzles largely based on vision and shitsukan science, with the goal of showing that science can be fun, relevant, and accessible to all. Finally, a panel discussion will be held to sum up the deliberations of this symposium.
Day 4: 11:15 – 12:15, July 17, 2017.
Call for abstracts:Nov 15,2016
Symposium submission deadline:Feb 28, 2017
Abstract submission deadline:Mar 31, 2017 Apr 17, 2017
Early registration deadline:Mar 31, 2017 Apr 30, 2017
All deadlines are midnight latest time zone on earth.