Key organizer: Haline Schendan, Department of Psychology, Tufts University
Dates: Thurs, May 29 - Sat, May 31, 2008
Location: Tufts University in Medford, MA

Sponsored by the American Psychological Association and Tufts University

ABSTRACT SUBMISSION IS NOW CLOSED.

Introduction

How can people interact appropriately with and understand the world they see around them? To do so, people must accurately perceive and conceptualize about the world, an ability that depends inherently upon their prior experience with the environment and their ability to consciously or nonconsciously reactivate this knowledge. This conference will bring together researchers in vision and memory, two important fields of Psychology that have proceeded largely in parallel. The National Institute of Health has recognized that advances in the field of learning and memory are among the greatest successes that science has made toward the goal of understanding the human mind. Moreover, the field of learning and memory has one of the longest and most fruitful histories of investigating conscious versus nonconscious processes, with key discoveries coming from studies of patients with amnesia. A deeper understanding of the latest discoveries in learning and memory is thus certain to inspire comparable advances among vision scientists. In turn, vision is the dominant sensory modality in humans, and so a deeper understanding of the neural basis of vision is sure to provide important information for developing comprehensive theories of visual learning and memory. Emerging research on the neural basis of visual knowledge has begun to achieve this desirable synthesis of vision and learning and memory fields. This conference will serve to facilitate not only the cross-pollination of ideas among scientists in each field but also to promote the continued emergence of a new field of visual knowledge that incorporates, with equal emphasis, the key ideas from both of these established research domains. Moreover, the conference will enable interactions not only among cognitive psychologists and cognitive neuroscientists in vision or memory fields who test human participants but also neurobiologists who study the neural basis of vision and memory in animals and scientists using computational modeling to develop theories of visual knowledge. These scientists rarely come together to exchange perspectives but instead attend separate meetings and yet their interactions are crucial to rapid advances in each field and the continued emergence of a field of visual knowledge.

To achieve these conference goals, speakers have been carefully selected from the fields of Cognitive Neuroscience, Cognitive Psychology, Neurobiology, and Computational Modeling:

• Jocelyne Bachevalier: "Medial Temporal Lobe Structures and Memory: What Have We Learned from Lesion Studies in Nonhuman Primates?" Professor of Psychology, Emory University.
  
  
• Neal J. Cohen: "Hippocampus and Relational Memory in the Construction and Use of Visual Representations." Professor of Psychology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Brain and Cognition Division of the Beckman Institute.
  
  
• Charles E. Connor: "The Neural Basis Of Knowledge About Object Structure." Associate Professor, Johns Hopkins University.
  
  
• Robert Cook: "Avian Perspectives On Visual Knowledge: The Bird's Eye View." Professor and Chair of Psychology, Tufts University.
  
  
• Stephen Grossberg: "How does the brain learn what an object is? A synthesis of visual perception, attention, search, and category learning." Chairman and Wang Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems, Professor of Mathematics, Psychology, and Biomedical Engineering, Director, Center for Adaptive Systems, Director, Center of Excellence for Learning in Education, Science, and Technology, Boston University.
  
  
• Ray Jackendoff: "What and Where in Spatial Language and Spatial Cognition." Seth Merrin Professor, Dept. of Philosophy, Co-Director, Center for Cognitive Studies, Tufts University.
  
  
• Stephen M. Kosslyn: "Is One Cerebral Hemisphere More 'Perceptual' than the Other?" John Lindsley Professor of Psychology, Harvard University.
  
  
• Alex Martin: "Fine tuning conceptual representations:  A role for the anterior temporal lobes?" Chief of the Section on Cognitive Neuropsychology, Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health.
  
  
• Ken A. Paller: "Distinguishing explicit memory and conceptual implicit memory electrophysiologically." Professor of Psychology, Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program and Department of Psychology, Northwestern University.
  
  
• Mary A. Peterson: "Inhibitory Competition in Figure-Ground Perception: Effects of Familiarity and Context." Professor of Psychology, University of Arizona.
  
  
• Suparna Rajaram: "Memory and Awareness: Means of Access and Processing Requirements." Professor of Psychology, Stony Brook University.
  
  
• Lynn C. Robertson: "Visual Representations of Undetected Stimuli: Evidence from Patients with Unilateral Visual Extinction." Professor of Psychology, University of California at Berkeley.
  
  
• Haline E. Schendan: "When and Where Vision Meets Memory: Prefrontal-Posterior Cortical Dynamics for Visual Object Knowledge." Assistant Professor of Psychology, Tufts University.
  
  
• Sharon L. Thompson-Schill: "When Hand-Sight is 20/20: How Sensorimotor Experience Affects Memory for Object Appearance." Associate Professor of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania.