Allison Sekuler

McMaster University

Allison Sekuler is Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience, Professor of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, and Associate Vice-President and Dean of Graduate Studies at McMaster University, in Hamilton, Ontario. She received her B.A. with a joint degree in Mathematics and Psychology from Pomona College, and her Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley. An outstanding teacher and internationally-recognized researcher, Dr. Sekuler has been recognized as an Alexander von Humboldt fellow and an Ontario Distinguished Researcher, and she was named one of Canada’s “Leaders of Tomorrow” in 2004. Her primary areas of research are vision science and cognitive neuroscience. Prof. Sekuler has served on numerous national and international boards in support of science, and is a former Treasurer and Member of the Board of Directors for the Vision Sciences Society. She is a passionate advocate for science outreach, frequently appearing in the media to discuss scientific issues, and currently representing the scientific community on the national Steering Committee for the Science Media Centre of Canada.

Vision and the Amazing, Changing, Aging Brain

Saturday, May 8, 2010, 10:00 – 11:30 am, Renaissance Academy of Florida Gulf Coast University

The “greying population” is the fastest growing group in North America. We know relatively little, however, about how aging affects critical functions such as vision and neural processing. For a long time, it was assumed that once we passed a certain age, the brain was essentially fixed, and could only deteriorate. But recent research shows that although aging leads to declines in some abilities, other abilities are spared and may even improve. This lecture will discuss the trade-offs in visual and neural processing that occur with age, and provide evidence that we really can teach older brains new tricks.

About the VSS Public Lecture

The annual public lecture represents the mission and commitment of the Vision Sciences Society to promote progress in understanding vision, and its relation to cognition, action and the brain. Education is basic to our science, and as scientists we are obliged to communicate the results of our work, not only to our professional colleagues but to the broader public. This lecture is part of our effort to give back to the community that supports us.

Jointly sponsored by VSS and the Renaissance Academy of Florida Gulf Coast University.

Jeremy Wolfe

Harvard Medical School

Jeremy Wolfe became interested in visual perception during the course of a summer job at Bell Labs in New Jersey after his senior year in high school. He graduated summa cum laude from Princeton in 1977 with a degree in Psychology and went on to obtain his PhD in 1981 from MIT, studying with Richard Held. His PhD thesis was entitled “On Binocular Single Vision”. Wolfe remained at MIT as a lecture, assistant professor, and associate professor until 1991. During that period, he published papers on binocular rivalry, visual aftereffects, and accommodation. In the late 1980s, the focus of the lab shifted to visual attention. Since that time, he has published numerous articles on visual search and visual attention. He is, perhaps, best known for the development of the Guided Search theory of visual search. In 1991, Wolfe moved to Brigham and Women’s Hospital where he is Director of the Visual Attention Lab and of the Radiology Department’s Center for Advanced Medical Imaging. He is Professor of Ophthalmology and Radiology at Harvard Medical School.

At present, the Visual Attention Lab works on basic problems in visual attention and their application to such problems as airport security and medical screening. The lab is funded by the US National Institutes of Health, Office of Naval Research, and Department of Homeland Security. The Center for Advanced Medical Imaging is devoted to understanding and improving the consumption of images in clinical radiology.

Wolfe has taught Introductory Psychology, Psychology and Literature, and Sensation and Perception at MIT & Harvard and other universities. He is the Editor of the journal, Attention, Perception and Psychophysics (AP&P, formerly P&P). Wolfe is Past-President of the Eastern Psychological Association and President of Division 3 of the American Psychological Association. He is chair of the Soldier Systems Panel of the Army Research Lab Technical Assessment Board (NRC). He won the Baker Memorial Prize for teaching at MIT in 1989. He is a fellow of the American Assoc. for the Advancement of Science, the American Psychological Association (Div. 3 & 6), the American Psychological Society, and a member of the Society for Experimental Psychologists. He lives in Newton, Mass. with his wife, Julie Sandell (Professor of Neuroanatomy and Assoc. Provost at Boston U.). has three sons (Benjamin – 24, Philip – 22, and Simon – 15), a cat, two snakes, and occasional mice.

The Salami at the Airport: Visual Search Gets Real

Saturday, May 7, 2011, 10:00 – 11:30 am, Renaissance Academy of Florida Gulf Coast University

We are built to search. Our ancestors foraged for food. We search for pens, keys, and cars in parking lots. Some searches are hard and important: think about the search for cancer in x-rays or security threats in luggage. We are remarkably good at search. How do you mange to find the cornstarch in the cupboard? However, we are not as good as we would like to be. How could you miss something (like a gun or a tumor) that is, literally, right in front of your eyes? How might we reduce errors in socially important search tasks?

About the VSS Public Lecture

The annual public lecture represents the mission and commitment of the Vision Sciences Society to promote progress in understanding vision, and its relation to cognition, action and the brain. Education is basic to our science, and as scientists we are obliged to communicate the results of our work, not only to our professional colleagues but to the broader public. This lecture is part of our effort to give back to the community that supports us.

Jointly sponsored by VSS and the Renaissance Academy of Florida Gulf Coast University.

Terri Lewis

McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario

Terri Lewis is a professor of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, with appointments in Ophthalmology at the University of Toronto and at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. Dr. Lewis is a world-renowned expert in babies’ vision, and is part of an international think tank on new approaches to improving poor vision in adults. She received her BA at the University of Toronto and her PhD at McMaster University, and has been invited to lecture about her work around the world. She has more than 80 publications in peer-reviewed journals and more than 200 presentations at scientific meetings. She is known for her lively and clear presentation style, and is frequently featured in the international media, including The New York Times and PBS television.

What Babies See

Saturday, May 12, 2012, 10:00 am – 12:00 pm, Renaissance Academy of Florida Gulf Coast University

When a newborn baby looks at her mother’s or grandmother’s face for the first time, what does she see? For a long time, people assumed that babies were blind at birth, seeing nothing more than vague shadows. But that assumption was based only on the knowledge that the newborn’s eyes and brain are very immature. In fact, babies can see much more than you might think. This lecture will describe how we can “ask” babies what they see, and how, by creating special “eye charts” for babies, we have discovered the finest detail that they can see, how well they can see color and motion, and even the age at which they might recognize their parents (and grandparents). I will dispel the myths, describe the facts, and uncover the surprises surrounding the amazing visual world of babies.

About the VSS Public Lecture

The annual public lecture represents the mission and commitment of the Vision Sciences Society to promote progress in understanding vision, and its relation to cognition, action and the brain. Education is basic to our science, and as scientists we are obliged to communicate the results of our work, not only to our professional colleagues but to the broader public. This lecture is part of our effort to give back to the community that supports us.

Jointly sponsored by VSS and the Renaissance Academy of Florida Gulf Coast University.

David J. Lewkowicz

Florida Atlantic University

David J. Lewkowicz is an internationally renowned authority on infant perceptual and cognitive development. He is currently Professor of Psychology at Florida Atlantic University and a past President of the International Society on Infant Studies.

Poster graphics created by Guilluame Doucet, McGill University.

Perceptual Expertise Begins in Infancy

Saturday, May 11, 2013, 10:00 – 11:30 am, Renaissance Academy of Florida Gulf Coast University

Contrary to conventional wisdom, infants are not passive, naïve observers. Aided by prenatally acquired perceptual abilities, starting at birth infants begin to interact with their world. As they grow, they rapidly learn about the faces, voices, speech, and language in their native environment. By their first birthday, infants become perceptual experts but, paradoxically, only for native faces, voices, speech, and language. This talk will show how the knowledge that we acquire as infants not only facilitates but also hinders our interactions with our world for the rest of our lives.
The annual public lecture represents the mission and commitment of the Vision Sciences Society to promote progress in understanding vision, and its relation to cognition, action and the brain. Education is basic to our science, and as scientists we are obliged to communicate the results of our work, not only to our professional colleagues but to the broader public. This lecture is part of our effort to give back to the community that supports us.

About the VSS Public Lecture

The annual public lecture represents the mission and commitment of the Vision Sciences Society to promote progress in understanding vision, and its relation to cognition, action and the brain. Education is basic to our science, and as scientists we are obliged to communicate the results of our work, not only to our professional colleagues but to the broader public. This lecture is part of our effort to give back to the community that supports us.

Jointly sponsored by VSS and the Renaissance Academy of Florida Gulf Coast University.

The 2015 Public Lecture was cancelled. The 2015 lecture will be given at the 2016 meeting.

About the VSS Public Lecture

The annual public lecture represents the mission and commitment of the Vision Sciences Society to promote progress in understanding vision, and its relation to cognition, action and the brain. Education is basic to our science, and as scientists we are obliged to communicate the results of our work, not only to our professional colleagues but to the broader public. This lecture is part of our effort to give back to the community that supports us.

Thomas V. Papathomas

Rutgers University

Thomas V. Papathomas, a Professor and Dean at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, studies how humans perceive objects, faces and scenes. He has authored over 100 scientific publications, has designed award-winning 3-D illusions and has exhibited in art/science shows and science museums.

Vision Research: Artists Doing Science – Scientists Doing Art

Saturday, May 17, 2014, 11:00 am – 12:30 pm, The Dali Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida

It has often been said that artists are years ahead of vision scientists in making progress toward understanding how the visual brain works. This talk will illustrate how artists have been able to use their intuitive grasp of visual perception fundamentals to open new horizons in research. At the same time, the talk will highlight how visual scientists have used their research-based knowledge of visual brain function to provide a deep understanding of the art experience and, occasionally, venture into making art.

About the VSS Public Lecture

The annual public lecture represents the mission and commitment of the Vision Sciences Society to promote progress in understanding vision, and its relation to cognition, action and the brain. Education is basic to our science, and as scientists we are obliged to communicate the results of our work, not only to our professional colleagues but to the broader public. This lecture is part of our effort to give back to the community that supports us.

Patrick Cavanagh

Université Paris Descartes

Patrick Cavanagh is the head of the Centre of Attention and Vision at the Université Paris Descartes and a Distinguished Research Professor at Dartmouth College. He received a undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering from McGill University in 1968 and a PhD in Cognitive Psychology from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1972. He taught at the Université de Montréal from 1972 to 1989 and then at Harvard University from 1989 to 2008. Current projects study the roles of visual attention in selecting and creating visual representations, and the properties and strategies of visual attention in normal and brain damaged subjects. He has also explored the contribution of various features such as shadow, color, motion, and texture to representations of visual form and these experiments led to his interest in art as a source of data for neuroscience.

The Artist as Neuroscientist

Saturday, May 14, 11:00 am, Museum of Fine Arts, Marly Room, St. Petersburg, Florida

A piece of art can trigger many emotions and impressions, many of them just as the artist intended. However, the same painting may also reveal, unintentionally, much about the workings of the brain: how the brain recovers the light and space and surfaces that we see. Painters often stray from photorealistic styles, taking liberties with the rules of physics to achieve a more effective painting. Critically, some of these transgressions of physics such as impossible shadows, shapes, or reflections go unnoticed by viewers – these undetected errors are the ones that tell us which rules of physics actually count for visual perception. As artists find the rules they can break without penalty, they act as neuroscientists and we have only to look at their paintings to uncover and appreciate their discoveries. Which means that 40,000 years of art also counts as 40,000 years of documented, neuroscience research, a record unmatched in any other discipline. We will survey art from cave paintings to the modern era and show how to do “science by looking”, unlocking the discoveries in art every time you give it a painting a second, knowing look.

Cavanagh, P. (2005) The artist as neuroscientist. Nature, 434, 301-307.
Cavanagh, P., Chao, J., & Wang, D. (2008). Reflections in art. Spatial Vision, 21, 261-270.
Perdreau, F. & Cavanagh, P. (2011). Do artists see their retinas? Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 5:171.
Sayim, B., & Cavanagh P. (2011). The art of transparency. i-Perception, 2, 679-696.
Sayim, B., & Cavanagh P. (2011). What line drawings reveal about the visual brain. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 5:118, 1-4

Attending the Public Lecture

The lecture is free to the public with admission to the museum. (Museum members: Free; Adults $17; Seniors 65 and older $15; Military with Id $15; College Students $10; Students 7-18 $10; Children 6 and under Free)

VSS attendees will receive free admission to the Museum May 13-18 by showing your meeting badge.

About the VSS Public Lecture

The annual public lecture represents the mission and commitment of the Vision Sciences Society to promote progress in understanding vision, and its relation to cognition, action and the brain. Education is basic to our science, and as scientists we are obliged to communicate the results of our work, not only to our professional colleagues but to the broader public. This lecture is part of our effort to give back to the community that supports us.