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