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.
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.