Instructor: Randolph Blake
Office: Rm 511, Wilson Hall
E-mail: randolph.blake@vanderbilt.edu
Voice phone: 343-7010
Office hours: T/Th 1 - 3
Honors 185
Vision: Optics to Art
Instructor: Randolph
Blake
Office: Rm 511, Wilson Hall
E-mail: randolph.blake@vanderbilt.edu
Voice phone: 343-7010
Office hours: T/Th 1 - 3
Course Overview: This course will sample contemporary theory and research in vision, including an analysis of philosophical and biological issues. We will learn how biological organisms acquire, process and utilize visual information about objects and events in the environment. Vision is an area of neuroscience where the links between mind and brain are among the strongest. Thus, a recurring theme in the course will be the relation between brain events and perceptual events, with solid grounding in sensory neurophysiology. Several aspects of vision - color, motion, form, depth - will be covered, but in the context of specific problems. Besides its grounding in neurobiology, vision inevitably entails discussion of philosophical issues, including epistemology (the branch of philosophy concerned with the origins of knowledge) and the mind/body problem; a recurring "sidebar" will be disorders of mind/brain and their consequences for disordered constructions of reality. Throughout the semester, you will be asked to think about the representational nature of visual knowledge and about naive realism (the view that our perceptions provide an objective "picture" of visual reality). Finally, the course will establish links between principles of vision and developments within the visual arts, media and literature.
Course goal: Together we will attempt to create a learning environment that engages us intellectually and emotionally, drawing us into the subject in a way that makes it impossible to avoid thinking about and discussing real ideas. Together we will frame questions, identify resources for answering those questions and, finally, evaluate the validity and generality of those answers. Scholarly research is the foundation of this process. The teacher's role is the same as the student's: the common pursuit of knowledge and understanding. A significant part of your learning in this course will take place outside of the designated class times. Class meetings provide the opportunity to share with others the progress of our investigations into the nature of vision and, more generally, the relation of mind to brain.
Computer accounts/electronic classroom: Students need to be comfortable
using electronic mail (e-mail) and the World Wide Web (WWW). Feel free to
use e-mail to transmit comments or questions to the instructor or to one
another. We will establish a community WWW page for this course. In addition,
you will be performing "laboratory" exercises and completing homework
assignments using the electronic classroom in Wilson 115.
GUIDING PRINCIPLES FOR THIS COURSE
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler (Albert
Einstein)
Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly (Gypsy Rose Lee)
The more the teacher teaches, the less the student learns (anonymous)
REQUIRED READINGS
Flatland,
E.A. Abbott
Johnny Got His Gun, D. Trumbo
Introduction to the Visual System, M.J. Tóvee
Selected articles, TBA
WEEKLY "PROBLEMS"
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3 (1/26):A belated start: what, where and why of this course. What
is vision? What is light? Inverse optics and ill-posed problems (Abbott,
Flatland)
Week 4 (2/2):Visual maps in the human brain: retinotopy, functional specialization
and images of the brain at work (Chapt 4, Tovee)
Week 5 (2/9):Constructing a visual world: cats, bats and Geordi LaForge;
(Nagel, What is it like to be a bat; Blake, Visual world of the cat)
Week 6 (2/16):Colorful wonders: rainbows, trichromacy, achromotopsia, color
television and Chuck Close (Chapt 3 &7, Tovee; Sacks, The colorblind
painter) homework assignment 1: color discrimination
Week 7 (2/23):Vision as an infant and as an elder: simulating the visual
world of the young and the old; spatial frequency analysis (Chapt 5, Tovee);
homework assignment 2: 2D image processing
Week 8 (3/1):What's in a faces? Prosopagnosia, fMRI eye-witness testimony;
(Chapt 9, Tovee; Adolphs et al, Amygdala and facial emotion); Midterm exam
Week 9 (3/10): Spring Break
Week 10 (3/17): Makin' movies: space/time, Reichardt detectors Bugs Bunny;
(Chapt 10, Tovee) homework assignment 3: apparent motion
Week 11 (3/23):From 2D to 3D: magic eye posters, Leonardo da Vinci Star
Wars (Chapt 11, Tovee) homework assignment 4: making magic
Week 12 (3/31):A world of darkness: blindness, artificial eyes (D. Trumbo,
Johnny Got His Gun; Sadato et al, Visual cortical activity in blind
subjects; ) homework assignment 5: eye patch experiment
Week 13 (4/6):Locke vs Kant: role of experience in seeing; Wearing new glasses,
(Chapt 6, Tovee; Sacks, To see and not see)
Week 14 (4/13):Visual awareness and consciousness: subliminal perception,
blindsight and radiology (Bihan et al, Visual cortical activation during
imagery; TBA)
Week 15 (4/20): Final thoughts
VANDERBILT'S HONOR CODE GOVERNS ALL WORK IN THIS COURSE
EXPLORING VISION OUTSIDE OF CLASS
Students of vision can gain a deeper, more general appreciation of visual
perception and it's neurological bases by studying artistic compositions.
Artists often exploit principles of vision to construct and/or amplify their
works. Interestingly, this is often done unwittingly, i.e., without the
individual's understanding the principle(s) being used. In other instances,
artists create works that allow us to experience our world in unusual ways
or in ways that highlight the richness of our visual world. From time to
time during the semester we will examine works of art to see the operation
of these principles in action. In addition, however, you are urged to explore
this rich source of stimulation and insight outside of class. Attend carefully
to the pictures you see and the visual media you watch - try to understand
your experiences of those sources in light of what you're learning in this
class. Ask why a particular painting creates an impression of depth, even
though it is a flat, two-dimensional object. For that matter, when reading
a particularly visual passage in a novel, try to understand how the author
is using words and phrases to build vivid imagery in your mind's eye.
In the final analysis, however, you will find that the richest source of
information for understanding vision is provided by your own, everyday experiences.
During the semester I want you to discover things that, in a sense, you
already know. Learn to pay attention to the sights that populate your visual
world. Look at objects not for what they are but for how they appear - see
their shapes, colors, angles and sizes. Watch as events unfold over time,
paying attention to how dynamic your visual world really is. Notice under
what conditions your vision seems particularly keen and under what conditions
vision suffers.
Keep a "Vision Diary" in which you record visual observations.
Include among your entries questions that are raised in your mind about
why things appear as they do. Also record the circumstances surrounding
your observations: where you were, time of day, ambient viewing conditions,
your mood and any other factors that might relate to the quality or intensity
of the visual experience. Bring particularly salient or mysterious experiences
to class, so we may share in the enjoyment of one another's visual worlds.
"And here are trees and I know their gnarled surface, water, and I feel its taste. These scents of grass and stars at night, certain evenings when the heart relaxes -- how shall I negate this world whose power and strength I feel? Yet all the knowledge on earth will give me nothing to assure me that this world is mine. You describe it to me and you teach me to classify it. You enumerate its laws and in my thirst for knowledge I admit that they are true. You take apart its mechanism and my hope increases ... What need had I of so many efforts? The soft lines of these hills and the hand of evening on this troubled heart teach me much more."
ALBERT CAMUS, The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
"The keenness of our vision depends not on how much we can see, but on how much we feel. Nor yet does mere knowledge create beauty. Nature sings her most exquisite songs to those who love her. She does not unfold her secrets to those who come only to gratify facts, but to those who see in her manifold phenomena suggestions of lofty, delicate sentiments."
HELEN KELLER, The World I Live In (1904)
Web sites of potential interest
to students of "Vision"
Vision General/Fun/Weird
http://emporium.turnpike.net/C/cs/eye.htm
http://www.intl-light.com/handbook/index.html
Visual Motion
http://totoro.berkeley.edu/teaching/RF/XTinseparable.html
http://www.sover.net/~manx/spirals.html
Animal Vision
http://cvs.anu.edu.au/andy/beye/beyehome.html
Neuroscience
http://www.med.harvard.edu/AANLIB/home.html
http://www-hbp.usc.edu:8376/HBP/Home.html
http://www-hbp.scripps.edu/Home.html
http://insight.med.utah.edu/Webvision/index.html
http://www.neuroguide.com
http://www.lycaeum.org/~sputnik/Brain/index.html
http://www.shef.ac.uk/~phil/connex/index.html
http://hcrl.open.ac.uk/psyche/psychecontents.html
Disorders
http://unix.hensa.ac.uk/dyslexia.html
http://dsmallpc2.path.unimelb.edu.au/ad.html
Visual Illusions
http://www.lainet.com/~ausbourn/
http://www.grand-illusions.com/
http://www.illusionworks.com/
ttp://www.maui.net/~lcoleon/Illusionshome.html
