Last updated: 20 July 2024
Cortical blindness can occur after a cerebrovascular accident, and is usually characterised by a loss of vision in circumscribed regions (if not the entirety) of the visual field. Visual experience is mediated by brain dynamics, which are, in turn, available to manipulation by the use of stimulus dynamics. Can stimulus dynamics influence the outcome of stroke? Reporting 3 sets of studies, in this talk I will show that the answer to this question is ‘yes’, and, in fact, using specific stimulus-presentation frequencies, we have been able to restore vision to fairly large regions of the visual-blind field - at least for short periods of time. An interesting ‘inverse corollary’ with restoration is inhibition. There appear to be stimulus frequencies that are suboptimal for mediating visual experience. And these might be useful for approaching other diseases, particularly glaucoma. In concluding, I will explain how the use of stimulus dynamics might help unmask glaucoma at early stages of the disease.
Human learning is a complex process and, in this Masterclass, Dr. Anveshna will describe through a few concrete examples how understanding the learning process can enable educators and learners to efficiently and effectively integrate technological resources in pedagogy.[watch live]
We spend a substantial amount of our waking time mind-wandering. Despite popular belief, I do not think that is a bad thing necessarily. It can be very useful for planning and creativity. Mind-wandering only becomes harmful when it is so "sticky" that it is difficult to disengage from, and therefore interferes with other important tasks of life. For this reason, I am very interested in tracking such sticky thinking in the lab. I will demonstrate different methods to assess sticky thinking, for example based on computerized tasks or based on EEG. I will show how rumination may be a particular example of sticky thinking, and finally, I will present my ideas on how different contemplative practices may help to reduce the stickiness of our thinking.
Prof. Sinha discussed his project Prakash which is helping children in India recover the ability to see. His work involved both ways to restoring sightedness and how individuals see the world upon recovery, for instance can people recognize shapes from sight alone immediately after being able to see. His spoke about how this work allowed him to solve the Molyneux Problem.
In this talk, Prof. Gold detailed the work his lab has been doing on perceptual decision making. He discussed with us his efforts over the years in trying to model how humans collect perceptual evidence in favour of a decision. He spoke about how he has been trying to model this form of decision making in a simpler and adaptive way, where models do not over-fit data and allow for variance seen in human performance.
Prof. Melcher discussed in his talk results from behavioural and neuroimaging studies that showed temporal constraints on perception, attention and memory. He presented us with results showing the temporal regularities over which these cognitive processes operate. Ultimately to explain how visual systems may construct percepts over time.
In his talk, Prof. Vasisth discussed the basic composition of the frequentist linear mixed modeling framework (including generalized linear models). He covered the following topics: shrinkage, model comparison, model evaluation using simulated data, and power analyses using the linear mixed model.
An expert on time perception, Prof. Wittmann gave a talk on relating concepts of self, body and perceived time. His work explores states of altered consciousness (meditation, experience under psychotropic substances etc). In his talk, he discussed how sense of self and time are altered during such experiences.