Computational Neuroscience: Vision 
          Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Summer Course 

                   June 18 - July 1, 1998 

Course Organizers: 

David J. Heeger, Stanford University 
Eero P. Simoncelli, NYU
Michael N. Shadlen, University of Washington


Application Deadline: March 15, 1998 

Description: Computational approaches to neuroscience have produced
important advances in our understanding of neural processing.  The
theme of this course is that an understanding of mathematical and
computational tools in conjunction with perceptual and biological data
can help guide research in neuroscience.  Through a combination of
lectures and hands-on computer laboratory experience, this course will
cover neural image representations, the neural basis of color vision,
pattern vision, visual motion perception, oculomotor function, and
visual attention.  This year, there will be a new emphasis on theories
and computational models of the neural basis of visually-guided
behavior and decision-making, a burgeoning area of sensory and
computational neuroscience.  Students should have experience in
neurobiological or computational approaches to visual processing.
Some computer programming experience is required.

Course Organization and Format: The course will be two weeks long, and
each day of the course will include both lecture/discussion periods
and time on the computers. In past years, participants' course
activities have run from 9 am through midnight.  A typical day of the
course involves two lectures and two formal computer laboratories,
combined with periods of free discussion.

Computer Labs and Course Projects: The computer labs will consist
mainly of a series of computer tutorials.  Some of these will cover
the background material (linear systems theory, signal/image
processing) that form the theoretical basis for much of the work on
computational vision.  But most of the tutorials will correspond to
each of the lecture topics.  MATLAB, will be used for most of the
computer labs.  Participants will be encouraged to do a course
project, implementing a computational model of some aspect of vision.

Lectures will be given by the three course organizers and by a number
of invited lecturers: E. H. Adelson (MIT), D. Brainard (UCSB),
E. J. Chichilnisky (Salk Institute), D. Dacey (Univ. Washington),
P. Glimcher (NYU), N. Graham (Columbia), J. Groh (Dartmouth),
J. Maunsell (Baylor), J. A. Movshon (NYU), J. Palmer (Univ. of
Washington), J. Schall (Vanderbilt), L. Welch (Brown).

Futher information and application materials available at
http://white.stanford.edu/~heeger/csh/csh.html
http://nucleus.cshl.org/meetings/98c-visi.htm