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The Whitehead Lectures are funded and organised by the Departments of
Computing
and
Psychology
at Goldsmiths College, University of London, with the aim of stimulating interest
and debate in the area of cognition, computation and creativity. All are welcome
to attend.
The meetings for the autumn term 2004 [October .. December] are listed below.
All seminars to be held in MB2106, (Goldsmiths College Main Building), unless otherwise stated.
For directions to Goldsmiths College see: http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/find-us/
To be added to the seminar mailing list, please contact Mark Bishop by email:
m.bishop@gold.ac.uk
- Wednesday, 6th October, 16.00
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Human brain stimulation and visual search
Dr. Vince Walsh
ICN, University College London
http://www.psychol.ucl.ac.uk
Abstract: Successful search for a target in a visual scene requires many components including orienting, detecting the target and rejecting distractors. Performance in search is affected by the number of targets and distractors ,their similarity, motion in the display, location and viewing history of the stimuli etc. A task with so many stimulus variables and behavioural or neural responses may require different brain areas to interact in ways that depend on specific task demands. Until recently the right posterior parietal cortex was envisaged as having a pre-eminent role in visual search. Based on recent physiological and brain imaging evidence, and on a programme of magnetic stimulation studies designed to compare directly the contributions of the parietal cortex and the human frontal eye fields in search, we have generated an account of similarities and differences between these two brain regions. The comparison suggests that the frontal eye fields are important for some aspects of search previously attributed to the parietal cortex and that accounts of the cortical contributions to search need to be reassessed in the light of these findings.
Vince Walsh is Reader in Psychology and a Royal Society Research Fellow at University College London. His research interests include: the roles of the Frontal eye fields, parietal cortex and extrastriate cortex in visual search; interactions between different cortical visual areas, in particular extrastriate cortex and V1; the processing of temporal information for the experience of and action in time; transcranial magnetic stimulation (methodology and technical).
- Wednesday, 13th October, 16.00
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Minds, machines and Turing
Prof. Stevan Harnad
Department of Electronics and Computer Science, Southampton University
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/
Abstract: Turing's celebrated 1950 paper proposes a very general methodological criterion for modelling mental function: total functional equivalence and indistinguishability. His criterion gives rise to a hierarchy of Turing Tests, from subtotal ("toy") fragments of our functions (t1), to total symbolic (pen-pal) function (T2 -- the standard Turing Test), to total external sensorimotor (robotic) function (T3), to total internal microfunction (T4), to total indistinguishability in every empirically discernible respect (T5). This is a "reverse-engineering" hierarchy of (decreasing) empirical underdetermination of the theory by the data. Level t1 is clearly too underdetermined, T2 is vulnerable to a counterexample (Searle's Chinese Room Argument), and T4 and T5 are arbitrarily overdetermined. Hence T3 is the appropriate target level for cognitive science. When it is reached, however, there will still remain more unanswerable questions than when Physics reaches its Grand Unified Theory of Everything (GUTE), because of the mind/body problem and the other-minds problem, both of which are inherent in this empirical domain, even though Turing hardly mentions them.
Stevan Harnad was born in Hungary, did his undergraduate work at McGill University and his graduate work at Princeton University and is currently Professor of Cognitive Science at Southampton University. His research is on categorisation, communication and cognition. Founder and Editor of Behavioral and Brain Sciences (a paper journal published by Cambridge University Press), Psycoloquy (an electronic journal sponsored by the American Psychological Association) and the CogPrints Electronic Preprint Archive in the Cognitive Sciences Publications, PrePrints etc.
- Tuesday, 19th October, 16.00 – Venue: WB208
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Object based attention
Dr. David Soto
Departamento de Psicoloxia Social y Basica, Facultad de Psicoloxia, University of Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela
http://www.usc.es/psred/
Abstract: There is now much experimental evidence supporting the idea that visual attention can be deployed in at least two ways: one space-based and other object-based. However, it is not clear whether space- and object-based attention work in an integrated way within the visual system. In this article, we present two experiments in which we compare both components of attention within a cueing paradigm. Participants had to discriminate the orientation of a line that appeared within one of four moving circles, differing in colour. A cue appearing close to one of the four circles indicated the location or circle where the target stimulus was likely to appear. Spatial and object cueing effects were observed: responses were faster when target appeared either at the pre-cued location or within the pre-cued object. In addition, the object-cueing effect occurred only when the cue was spatially invalid and not when it was spatially valid. These results suggest that object- and space-based attention interact, with selection by location being primary over object-based selection.
David Soto's research interests are in the field of visual cognitive neuroscience. Much of his work has focused on the type of representation on which visual selection is carried out. He has been concerned with the role of spatial and object-based factors on attentional deployment and their function within the visual system. What is the function of object-based attention for visuomotor processing? Do both attention systems work independently or in an interactive manner within the visual system? Also, he is concerned with the inter-relations between both forms of attention and the processes that control attention (e.g. working memory). His future work is directed to find out the neural loci of both attention systems and their linked control structures using neuropsychological and brain imaging approaches.
- Wednesday, 27th October, 16.00
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Musical similarity, structure and expression
Dr. Michael Casey
Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK
http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/departments/computing/staff/MC.html
Abstract: We introduce elements of research into machine understanding of music modelling aspects of both the human auditory system and cognitive processes. We discuss musical similarity from multiple perspectives and show its relevance to analysing musical structure and expression. In the second part of the talk, we present recent work on detecting and recognising musical performance features in audio recordings such as trills, appoggiaturas and chord-spreadings. The goal of our work is the comparative analysis of musical performances.
Michael Casey is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computing at Goldsmiths College where he is a member of a large group working in Computational Creativity. His current research includes automatic segmentation and indexing of audio for creative media applications (EPSRC GR/S84750/01). Michael completed his Ph.D. in "Statistical Basis Methods for Structured Audio" at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Laboratory in 1998. Since then he has been an editor and co-chair for the MPEG-7 International Standard for Multimedia Content Description. In addition to scientific interests, Michael is a composer and has received prizes from the Bourges and Newcomp music festivals.
- Wednesday, 10th November, 16.00
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Mechanical bodies, mythical minds; dancing with pixies
Dr. Mark Bishop
Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK.
http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/departments/computing/staff/MB.html
Abstract: A cursory examination of the history of Artificial Intelligence, AI, serves to highlight several strong claims from its researchers, especially in relation to the populist form of computationalism that holds, ‘any suitably programmed computer will instantiate genuine conscious mental states purely in virtue of carrying out a specific series of computations’. The argument to be presented in this talk is grounded upon ideas first outlined in Hilary Putnam’s 1988 monograph, “Representation & Reality”, then developed by the author in two papers, “Dancing with Pixies”, and “Counterfactuals Cannot Count”. This work further extends these ideas to form a novel thesis against computationalism which, if correct, has important implications for Cognitive Science; both with respect to the prospect of ever developing a computationally instantiated consciousness and more generally for any computational, (purely-functional), explanation of mind.
Dr. Bishop is Reader in Computing at Goldsmiths College, University of London. He has published extensively both in the field of Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence and in Neural Computing. He recently co-edited a major retrospective volume on the influence of John Searle on artificial Intelligence, ('Views into the Chinese Room', Preston, J., & Bishop, J.M. OUP). The project involved collaboration with many eminent philosophers and cognitive scientists including the Nobel Laureate Herbert Simon; Sir Roger Penrose; John Taylor; Kevin Warwick; Terry Winograd; Stevan Harnad; John Searle; Ned Block; John Haugeland and George Rey.
- Wednesday, 17th November, 16.00
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Attention and context integration in early vision
Dr. Eliot Freeman
ICN, University College London, UK
http://www.psychol.ucl.ac.uk
Abstract: What we perceive from moment to moment depends not only on what we are looking at, but the surrounding visual context and our current behavioural context. For example, such basic processes as those involved in grouping small oriented segments (Gabor patches) into the perception of a global contour can depend strongly on which parts of the visual context are attended, and also the specific task that is being performed on them (Nat. Neuro. 4 no.10 p.1032). I will review my recent psychophysics data on this phenomenon, and I will also briefly introduce some new demonstrations from ongoing studies of context effects in ambiguous motion. Such examples may help to characterise the stimulus-driven and attentionally-driven mechanisms by which perceptual conflicts are resolved in context.
Dr. Elliot Freeman is a Research Fellow in the department of Psychology at University College London. His research interests span: attention & perception grouping; task-dependent processing in vision; pupil size as an index of visual information processing; relationship between modal/a-modal completion processes and focal attention.
- Wednesday, 24th November, 16.00
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Is consciousness worth it?
Prof. John Taylor
Dept of Mathematics, Kings College, University of London, UK
http://www.mth.kcl.ac.uk/~jgtaylor/
Abstract: The answer to the question of the title depends on what the functions of consciousness are supposed to be. Some suggest there are none, and that consciousness gets in the way of creativity, for example. Others disagree, and regard consciousness as the supreme controller in the brain. I will argue for the second point of view, and develop support for this by describing recent brain results indicating that there are at least two main functions of consciousness (and two sorts of consciousness), each crucial to our survival. I will conclude on how one might develop these functions and have a bright and burnished consciousness.
For over 20 years John Taylor has been Professor of Mathematics at King's College, London. But the title belies the breadth of his interests. He trained as a physicist and spent much of his career in conventional research, investigating the fundamental properties of matter, from quarks to black holes. But he's long nurtured a deep interest in the workings of the brain, which have now become the centre- piece of his investigations. The team that Taylor has assembled at King's is studying some of the most far-reaching ideas to emerge from neural networks: computer simulations of simple networks of nerve cells in the human brain.
- Wednesday, 1st December, 16.00
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Human visual cortex and awareness
Dr. Vince Walsh
ICN, University College London
http://www.psychol.ucl.ac.uk
Abstract: The role of cortical areas in visual awareness is a subject of much debate. The ability of patients with damage to primary visual cortex (V1) to detect and discriminate stimuli which they do not consciously perceive has led to suggestions that V1 is necessary for conscious visual perception. I will discuss recent results form studies of the blindsight patient GY in whom we have applied magnetic brain stimulation to intact and "blind" areas of the visual cortex. These studies have established intercation between his blind and seeing fields. I will also discuss brain stimulation studies, in neurologically intact subjects, in which we have established the role of V1 both in terms of the time course and content of visual awareness. I will argue that V1 is essential to normal visual awareness.
Vince Walsh is Reader in Psychology and a Royal Society Research Fellow at University College London. His research interests include: the roles of the Frontal eye fields, parietal cortex and extrastriate cortex in visual search; interactions between different cortical visual areas, in particular extrastriate cortex and V1; the processing of temporal information for the experience of and action in time; transcranial magnetic stimulation (methodology and technical).
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