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Sensory Coding and the Natural Environment

Gordon Research Conference

September 5 - 10, 2004
Chair
Vice Chairs and

Conference Description

This conference will bring together researchers from diverse disciplines to discuss the statistical structure of natural scenes, and how nervous systems exploit these statistics to form useful representations of the environment. Topics include sensory neurophysiology, perceptual psychology, and the mathematics of signal statistics, applied to a variety of sensory modalities and organisms.

Conference Program

SUNDAY
2:00 pm - 9:00 pmArrival and check-in
6:00 pm Dinner
7:30 pm - 9:30 pmKeynote Session
Discussion Leader: Bruno Olshausen (UC Davis/RNI)
7:30 pm - 8:30 pmHorace Barlow (Cambridge University)
"Changing ideas about what the brain computes and how it does it"
8:30 pm - 9:30 pmDavid Field (Cornell University)
"New Attempts at a Unified Theory of Sensory Coding: Why Ecology Provides Hope"
MONDAY
7:45 am - 8:30 amBreakfast
9:00 am - 12:30 pmSensory Coding in Vertebrates
9:00 am - 9:20 amDiscussion Leader: Mike Berry (Princeton University)
9:20 am - 10:00 amJason Puchalla (Princeton University)
"Parallel Visual Channels and Redundancy in the Retina"
10:00 am - 10:10 amDiscussion
10:10 am - 10:40 amCoffee Break
10:40 am - 11:20 am Charles Gray (Montana State University, Bozeman)
"Multi-Neuron Dynamics in Visual Cortex in Response to Time-Varying Natural Scenes"
11:20 am - 11:30 amDiscussion
11:30 am - 12:10 pmMatthew Diamond (SISSA, Trieste, Italy)
"Neuronal basis of texture sensation in the rat whisker system"
12:10 pm - 12:30 pmDiscussion
12:45 pm Lunch / Photo
1:30 pm - 4:00 pmFree Time
4:00 pm - 6:00 pm Poster Session
6:00 pm Dinner
7:30 pm - 9:30 pmPsychophysics and Behavior
7:30 pm - 7:50 pmDiscussion Leader: Bill Geisler (University of Texas, Austin)
7:50 pm - 8:30 pmTed Adelson (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
"Image statistics of materials and surface"
8:30 pm - 8:40 pmDiscussion
8:40 pm - 9:20 pmTom Troscianko (Bristol)
"Encoding of chromatic content of natural scenes"
9:20 pm - 9:30 pmDiscussion
TUESDAY
7:45 am - 8:30 amBreakfast
9:00 am - 12:30 pmImage Statistics and Coding
9:00 am - 9:20 amDiscussion Leader: Mike Lewicki (Carnegie Mellon University)
9:20 am - 10:00 amSong Chun Zhu (University of California, Los Angeles)
"From Scaling Laws of Natural Images to Regimes of Image Models"
10:00 am - 10:10 amDiscussion
10:10 am - 10:40 amCoffee Break
10:40 am - 11:20 am Eero Simoncelli (New York University)
"Statistical Image Models: Empirical Construction and Validation"
11:20 am - 11:30 amDiscussion
11:30 am - 12:10 pmDaniel Osorio (Bristol)
"The ecology of color vision"
12:10 pm - 12:30 pmDiscussion
12:30 pmLunch
1:30 pm - 4:00 pmFree Time
4:00 pm - 6:00 pmPoster Session
6:00 pmDinner
7:30 pm - 9:30 pmReceptive Fields
7:30 pm - 7:50 pmDiscussion Leader: Shihab Shamma (University of Maryland)
7:50 pm - 8:30 pmStephen David (UC Berkeley)
"Nonlinear neurons and natural vision"
8:30 pm - 8:40 pmDiscussion
8:40 pm - 9:20 pmJennifer Linden / Mahneesh Sahani (UCSF)
"Linearity and nonlinearity in auditory cortical responses"
9:20 pm - 9:30 pmDiscussion
WEDNESDAY
7:45 am - 8:30 amBreakfast
9:00 am - 12:30 pm Physiology of High-Level Vision
9:00 am - 9:20 amDiscussion Leader: Jack Gallant (UC Berkeley)
9:20 am - 10:00 amEd Rolls (Oxford University)
"Encoding in the inferior temporal visual cortex during the perception of natural scenes"
10:00 am - 10:10 amDiscussion
10:10 am - 10:40 amCoffee Break
10:40 am - 11:20 amJamie Mazer (UC Berkeley)
"Natural scenes and natural eye movements: Salience maps in V4"
11:20 am - 11:30 amDiscussion
11:30 am - 12:10 pmRafael Malach (Weizmann Institute)
"Deciphering human brain activity during natural sensory stimulation"
12:10 pm - 12:30 pmDiscussion
12:30 pmLunch
1:30 pm - 4:00 pmFree Time
4:00 pm - 6:00 pmPoster Session
6:00 pmDinner
7:30 pm - 9:30 pmInvertebrate Vision
7:30 pm - 7:50 pmDiscussion Leader: Hans van Hateren (University of Groningen)
7:50 pm - 8:30 pmMartin Egelhaaf (University of Bielefield)
"Neural encoding of behaviourally relevant information by the blowfly visual system"
8:30 pm - 8:40 pmDiscussion
8:40 pm - 9:20 pmM.V. Srinivasan (Australian National University, Canberra)
"Making a beeline for the food: Recent progress in understanding honeybee flight and navigation"
9:20 pm - 9:30 pmDiscussion
THURSDAY
7:45 am - 8:30 amBreakfast
9:00 am - 12:30 pmAnimal Communication
9:00 am - 9:20 amDiscussion Leader: Frederic Theunissen (UC Berkeley)
9:20 am - 10:00 amJag Kanwal (Georgetown University)
"Mapping Acoustic Communication Signals within Cortical Activity"
10:00 am - 10:10 amDiscussion
10:10 am - 10:40 amCoffee Break
10:40 am - 11:20 amSarah Wooley (UC Berkeley)
"Linear models of auditory tuning in songbird neurons reveal efficient coding of vocalizations"
11:20 am - 11:30 amDiscussion
11:30 am - 12:10 pmCarl Hopkins (Cornell University)
"Structure in Electric Communication Signals of fish"
12:10 pm - 12:30 pmDiscussion
12:30 pmLunch
1:30 pm - 4:00 pmFree Time
4:00 pm - 6:00 pmPoster Session
6:00 pmDinner
7:30 pm - 9:30 pmActive Sensing
7:30 pm - 7:50 pmDiscussion Leader: Pam Reinagel (University of California, San Diego)
7:50 pm - 8:30 pmEhud Ahissar (Weizmann)
"Active sensing in Vibrissa Somatosensation"
8:30 pm - 8:40 pmDiscussion
8:40 pm - 9:20 pmPeter Konig (Universitat Osnabruck, Germany)
"Mechanisms of overt visual attention under natural conditions"
9:20 pm - 9:30 pmDiscussion
FRIDAY
7:45 am - 8:30 amBreakfast
9:00 am Departure

Contributors

We gratefully acknowledge funding from the Swartz Foundation, National Institute of Mental Health, and the Redwood Neuroscience Institute.

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