122.06 Chang from Watanabe lab of Boston U. compared the thickness and size of the early visual areas between young (20-30) and old participants (>55) . They found the surface size of V1-v3 reduced with age even though thickness remains the same. They also tried to associate these differences in anatomy with perceptual learning and attention performance. They found a strong negative correlation between both attention and perceptual learning performance with V1 surface area.
[CC: I remembered a study which shows the thickness is positive correlated with IQ. However, that studies mentioned no surface area. Here, the surface area is strongly associate with certain psychological ability. I am wondering whether we can apply the same paradigm to other types of population, such as color blind and normal, high and low creativity etc.]
125.03 It is an interesting concept. In multivoxel pattern classification, it is necessary to run the same condition more than two times such that one can have both training and test sessions. However, repeating the same condition several times means fMRI adaptation. The authors here analyze the same data set both with MVPC and fMRI adaptation and found different conclusions.
125.09 Tootell measured the cortical magnification factor with fMRI by mapping activated to object images at different image size. Due o the cortical magnification factor, one would expect the bold activation increase fast with size when the size is small, and the activation slow down when the size is large. However, if there is cortical magnification factor, BOLD activation show increases with area linearly. They found that V2 and LOC activation showed strong cortical magnification factor while PPA does not. Hence, some inverse transform must occur between these stages.
[CC: I think this is more due to spatial summation than cortical magification. Roger should hollow out his stimuli.]
271.03, 06 & 07 Simocelli developed a nice model for V2 neurons. What a V2 neuron does is compute the correlation among V1 neurons. Hence, it is a correlation computer of V1 responses. They tested this model by measuring single cell electrophysiology responses and psychophysical performance to reconstructed image based on the properties of the model neurons.
[CC: It may be a good idea to test this model with texture contrast]
324.10 This study from Gallant's lab is more suitable to a psychology conference than a neuroscience one. They had participants watching a 30-min movie and naming the objects they saw. They then construct a semantic network of the terms. Then, they asked participants to attend to one category of objects and showed that the semantic network changed with attention.
428.04 Aguirre et al. applied Schira's template of retinotopic mapping (with some modification, of course) and found that one can define V1 from anatomy as accurate as using retinitopic mapping fMRI.
[CC: If this scheme works, this will have a greatest impact of all studies I saw this year so far. Most people using retinotopic mapping just want to get V1. It took about 3-5 min to get a good anatomy scan but about 40min to 1 hour to get stable a retinotopic mapping (and literarily hours of data analysis) . If they yield the same information, why spend the whole time doing the experiment over and over again. Not to say many patients are just not available for a long fMRI experiment. ]
487.13 This study from Wilson's lab suggested that FFA responses can be predicted by some principle components of faces.
[CC: This idea itself is interesting. However, Since their PCA was done by Wilson's model of distance between face features, I am not sure how this result differed from all those 2nd order configuration effects on face recognition.]
[There were nearly 190 posters on Monday afternoon. After reading so many posters in two hours, I found myself cannot remember anyone in detail.]
536.01 electrophysiologyI for contour integration.
536.02 The authors adapted their participant with a disk of a fixed size then place the projection screen at different distance to get the size illusion. They then measured BOLD activation related to the size illusion at V1 ROIs corresponding to different eccentricity. They showed that the V1 activation changed with perceived, rather than real sizes.
[CC: this is actually quite similar to Ansgar's exp a few years ago. But we did not get a as clean data as they did.
694.15 Kim & Freeman studied the single neuron responses to a target presented either with collinear flankers or with a surround at different conext-target distance. They found that the surrounds were mostly suppressive while the collinear flankers were mostly facilitative. For time course, surrounds with different distance has different amount of suppression between 100-300 ms while the collinear flankers only show distance effect at the late (200-300) component.
[CC: I like the experiment. But their model of feedback connection was just weird]
[the population receptive field almost dominated the last two days of talk sessions]
2011年11月17日 星期四
2011年10月9日 星期日
知己、知彼，然後知天 -- 序"信仰本能"
(應城邦集團啟示出版社邀稿，為"信仰本能")一書作序)
在唸大學的時候，每天的通勤都會經過台北市的新生南路。當時的新生南路，還有「諸神之道」的稱號（Avenue of Gods）。短短的幾百公尺，有著各式各樣宗教的會所。伊斯蘭教的清真寺和天主教的教堂幾乎是比鄰而居；在背後則隱約可以看到摩門教的聖殿；稍微往北，基督教的禮拜堂則面對著一個巨大的觀音像。
這個二十世紀的神明聚落，其實也只是數百年來一個包袱、一個神主牌的唐山過台灣的延續：人們不管走到哪裡，總是把他們的信仰一起帶著走。畢竟，信仰是許多人的生活重心。在台灣，固然是三步一廟、五步一寺，甚至被某些「有識之士」視為迷信落後的象徵；但高科技社會的日本也是處處神社，先進國家的美國和文化重鎮的西歐的都市也幾乎是一街一教堂，神的住宅密度之高也不在台灣之下。即便在宗教的範疇之外，人們也往往有意識或無意識的和非自然的想像產生連結。在我們每天聽聞或閱讀的文字中，充滿了「冥冥之中」、「天人合一」、「陰錯陽差」、「有如神助」、「鬼斧神工」之類的詞語，就是很好的佐證。
如此無所不在的信仰，如此多樣的鬼神，除了彰顯人類的創造力之外，是否還有其他的意義呢？ 雖然，自啟蒙時代哲學家伏爾泰以來，人以自己的形象創造眾神，已逐漸成為學界的共識。然而，是甚麼原因使得人們有所信仰，而又如此執著，卻仍未有定論。早期的信仰研究往往是在神學或哲學的範疇內進行，著重於對某一宗教的教義的分析。隨著社會科學的興起，由社會文化乃至於政治經濟（如「宗教是人民的鴉片煙」）的角度來探討信仰與宗教的研究有如汗牛充棟，大大的擴展了我們對人類行為的瞭解。然而，僅由社會文化的角度來分析，並無法完整的掌握信仰的本質。畢竟，社會文化的分析無法離開一個信仰所處的文化脈絡。然而，信仰卻是一個普遍的現像，信仰形式或有不同，但信仰的行為在不同的文化中卻有相當的共通性。因此，信仰的背後，應該會有一個人類共通的機制。
在一九七○年代的黑猩猩的研究中所發現的「心智理論」，提供了本書作者傑西．貝林一個切入點來瞭解信仰的心理機制。心智理論的功能，在於讓一個人或動物能夠從別的人或動物的觀點來思考。這樣的功能，需要當事人或動物能夠推測、理解對方對環境或事件的感知。雖然猩猩是否有完整的心智理論仍有爭議，但它們至少擁有部份的心智理論，已足夠讓我們得知心智理論是一個演化的結果。演化往往有過度概化（over generalization）的現象。心智理論也不例外。對他人的感知的推測，概化成了對其他物品感知的推測。既然賦予這些物品感知的能力，它們也就可以和我們互動了。因此，美人才能閉月羞花，李太白才能舉杯邀明月了。接著，把這些和我們「心靈互動」的物品擬人化、進而成為眾神，也不過是一步之遙。又，人們的各種活動往往有目的性，經過過度概化的心智理論，我們也賦予了周遭各種物品目的性，於是「冥冥之中」之類的說法就出現。如此，如書中所述，一步一步的，信仰的各個面向，就從過度概化的心智理論演變了過來。
除了提供了一個新的思考方面，貝林還提供了許多實驗的佐證。我尤其喜歡他從發展心理學的觀點，來探討信仰的各個面向如何在兒童的成長過程中，隨著心智理論的成熟逐漸展現出來。有些實驗結果，會挑戰我們的直覺。比如說，我們一般會認為，迷信是一種愚蠢的行為。但實際上，一個人是必須要有足夠的心智能力，才有辦法建立迷信背後的種種推理過程。畢竟，一個在不存在的事物和一個當下無從確認的未來之間的因果關係，其中所包含的假設和推理，是相當複雜的。因此，如果我們認定迷信對社會公眾利益是有害而需要防治的時候，僅把它當成是一個愚行，是無法解決問題的。
就像這樣，本書包括了許多值得我們深思的內容。不管讀者們是否同意作者的觀點，在和作者的心智理論糾纏的過程中，我們看待世界的方式也不一樣了。
在唸大學的時候，每天的通勤都會經過台北市的新生南路。當時的新生南路，還有「諸神之道」的稱號（Avenue of Gods）。短短的幾百公尺，有著各式各樣宗教的會所。伊斯蘭教的清真寺和天主教的教堂幾乎是比鄰而居；在背後則隱約可以看到摩門教的聖殿；稍微往北，基督教的禮拜堂則面對著一個巨大的觀音像。
這個二十世紀的神明聚落，其實也只是數百年來一個包袱、一個神主牌的唐山過台灣的延續：人們不管走到哪裡，總是把他們的信仰一起帶著走。畢竟，信仰是許多人的生活重心。在台灣，固然是三步一廟、五步一寺，甚至被某些「有識之士」視為迷信落後的象徵；但高科技社會的日本也是處處神社，先進國家的美國和文化重鎮的西歐的都市也幾乎是一街一教堂，神的住宅密度之高也不在台灣之下。即便在宗教的範疇之外，人們也往往有意識或無意識的和非自然的想像產生連結。在我們每天聽聞或閱讀的文字中，充滿了「冥冥之中」、「天人合一」、「陰錯陽差」、「有如神助」、「鬼斧神工」之類的詞語，就是很好的佐證。
如此無所不在的信仰，如此多樣的鬼神，除了彰顯人類的創造力之外，是否還有其他的意義呢？ 雖然，自啟蒙時代哲學家伏爾泰以來，人以自己的形象創造眾神，已逐漸成為學界的共識。然而，是甚麼原因使得人們有所信仰，而又如此執著，卻仍未有定論。早期的信仰研究往往是在神學或哲學的範疇內進行，著重於對某一宗教的教義的分析。隨著社會科學的興起，由社會文化乃至於政治經濟（如「宗教是人民的鴉片煙」）的角度來探討信仰與宗教的研究有如汗牛充棟，大大的擴展了我們對人類行為的瞭解。然而，僅由社會文化的角度來分析，並無法完整的掌握信仰的本質。畢竟，社會文化的分析無法離開一個信仰所處的文化脈絡。然而，信仰卻是一個普遍的現像，信仰形式或有不同，但信仰的行為在不同的文化中卻有相當的共通性。因此，信仰的背後，應該會有一個人類共通的機制。
在一九七○年代的黑猩猩的研究中所發現的「心智理論」，提供了本書作者傑西．貝林一個切入點來瞭解信仰的心理機制。心智理論的功能，在於讓一個人或動物能夠從別的人或動物的觀點來思考。這樣的功能，需要當事人或動物能夠推測、理解對方對環境或事件的感知。雖然猩猩是否有完整的心智理論仍有爭議，但它們至少擁有部份的心智理論，已足夠讓我們得知心智理論是一個演化的結果。演化往往有過度概化（over generalization）的現象。心智理論也不例外。對他人的感知的推測，概化成了對其他物品感知的推測。既然賦予這些物品感知的能力，它們也就可以和我們互動了。因此，美人才能閉月羞花，李太白才能舉杯邀明月了。接著，把這些和我們「心靈互動」的物品擬人化、進而成為眾神，也不過是一步之遙。又，人們的各種活動往往有目的性，經過過度概化的心智理論，我們也賦予了周遭各種物品目的性，於是「冥冥之中」之類的說法就出現。如此，如書中所述，一步一步的，信仰的各個面向，就從過度概化的心智理論演變了過來。
除了提供了一個新的思考方面，貝林還提供了許多實驗的佐證。我尤其喜歡他從發展心理學的觀點，來探討信仰的各個面向如何在兒童的成長過程中，隨著心智理論的成熟逐漸展現出來。有些實驗結果，會挑戰我們的直覺。比如說，我們一般會認為，迷信是一種愚蠢的行為。但實際上，一個人是必須要有足夠的心智能力，才有辦法建立迷信背後的種種推理過程。畢竟，一個在不存在的事物和一個當下無從確認的未來之間的因果關係，其中所包含的假設和推理，是相當複雜的。因此，如果我們認定迷信對社會公眾利益是有害而需要防治的時候，僅把它當成是一個愚行，是無法解決問題的。
就像這樣，本書包括了許多值得我們深思的內容。不管讀者們是否同意作者的觀點，在和作者的心智理論糾纏的過程中，我們看待世界的方式也不一樣了。
2011年7月29日 星期五
Time travel impossible
How dare those people to destroy the best plot of thousands of Sci-Fi movies!
What do you mean that I cannot go back in time. !
What's that?
It's official: Time machines won't work
Scientists Ruin Science Fiction by Proving Time Travel Is Impossible
This is just sad.
Yeah! we can still travel to the future, but one way only. What's the use of that.
What do you mean that I cannot go back in time. !
What's that?
It's official: Time machines won't work
Scientists Ruin Science Fiction by Proving Time Travel Is Impossible
This is just sad.
Yeah! we can still travel to the future, but one way only. What's the use of that.
2011年6月28日 星期二
In the blink of an eye
"In the blink of an eye" by Andrew Parker.
This is a very enjoyable book. In this book, the author proposed a new mechanism for evolution and a new theory for Cambrian explosion. The term Cambrian explosion refers to the relatively rapid rate of evolution (an order of magnitude faster than that in other periods) and the sudden emergence of all phyla of animals we know today. The Cambrian explosion was considered as a challenge to Evolutionism by Darwin himself and is subject to fierce debate today.
In this book, the author first noted that the diversity of diurnal animals is ten times greater than that of the nocturnal animals and that the evolution is much slower for animals living in caves than that for those living on the ground (cave animals from different regions often look identical even they have been separated by millions of years while animals on the ground may turn into different species after just thousands of years of separation). Perhaps, the need to adapt to light increases the diversity.
Then, he noted that the first eyes were evolved on trilobites just before Cambrian and that almost all Cambrian animals were covered by hard shells. From here, he proposed a theory of rapid evolution in Cambrian period. Basically, before there is an eye, a predator cannot detect a prey unless the prey send out a signal, being it sound or smell, or accidentally moved too close to the predator. Hence, whether an animal would be eaten was decided more by probability than any other thing. After the eyes were evolved, a predator could easily detect the prey. The survival of the prey species (i.e., almost all species) was at risk. Hence, it gave a tremendous evolution pressure to the preys to develop a countermeasure. Such fierce arm race accelerated evolution and the rest is history.
Overall speaking, I like this book. The author did a good job lead the readers going through his arguments step by step. While the author cited a lot of fossil and modern evidence, the main gist, in general, was buried in all the details. The only complain I have is that the author tended to spend too much time discussing his own papers which are not always relevant to this book.
This is a very enjoyable book. In this book, the author proposed a new mechanism for evolution and a new theory for Cambrian explosion. The term Cambrian explosion refers to the relatively rapid rate of evolution (an order of magnitude faster than that in other periods) and the sudden emergence of all phyla of animals we know today. The Cambrian explosion was considered as a challenge to Evolutionism by Darwin himself and is subject to fierce debate today.
In this book, the author first noted that the diversity of diurnal animals is ten times greater than that of the nocturnal animals and that the evolution is much slower for animals living in caves than that for those living on the ground (cave animals from different regions often look identical even they have been separated by millions of years while animals on the ground may turn into different species after just thousands of years of separation). Perhaps, the need to adapt to light increases the diversity.
Then, he noted that the first eyes were evolved on trilobites just before Cambrian and that almost all Cambrian animals were covered by hard shells. From here, he proposed a theory of rapid evolution in Cambrian period. Basically, before there is an eye, a predator cannot detect a prey unless the prey send out a signal, being it sound or smell, or accidentally moved too close to the predator. Hence, whether an animal would be eaten was decided more by probability than any other thing. After the eyes were evolved, a predator could easily detect the prey. The survival of the prey species (i.e., almost all species) was at risk. Hence, it gave a tremendous evolution pressure to the preys to develop a countermeasure. Such fierce arm race accelerated evolution and the rest is history.
Overall speaking, I like this book. The author did a good job lead the readers going through his arguments step by step. While the author cited a lot of fossil and modern evidence, the main gist, in general, was buried in all the details. The only complain I have is that the author tended to spend too much time discussing his own papers which are not always relevant to this book.
2011年5月16日 星期一
VSS2011 Note
16.526 Blakeslee & McCourt showed that a model that mimic early visual function can actually explain much brightness illusion that long considered as a result of high cognitive function.
We actually did a similar thing in our work on White illusion (Lin & Chen, 2010). Maybe we should try more effects along this line.
26.534 This my favorite presentation on the second day of the meeting Motoyoshi asked why western classical paintings emphasize so much on shading while their Eastern counterparts on outlines. The difference between these two approaches are obvious, with an emphasis on shading, figures in Western paintings tend to have more depth and look more realistic whose those in Eastern painting look flat and artificial. Motoyoshi suggested that the answer may be in the luminance statistics in the respective environment. In the dry Mediterranean region, illumination tends to be highly directional. As a result, there are always a lot shadows and highlights on a figure. On the other hand, in the humid Asian coastal regions, the illumination tend to be diffused. Shadows and highlights are limited. Hence, the artists of these two cultures were both trying their best depicting the reality around them.
If so, I believe that artists from San Francisco would paint like Asians even though their training are western.
22.11 One influential theory about crowding is that the target detection mechanism tend to integrate information from a wide region that covers the flankers. As a result, it is difficult to detect the target without the interference from the flankers. Ester et al. did a target orientation identification experiment in the presence of flanker with different orientation. They found that the error pattern (the distribution of orientation identification error) was not affected by the flanker orientation and thus
concluded that there is no evidence for the spatial summation model for crowding.
23.520. It is known that it is difficult for a computer to identify a face in a captured image if the face is too small or the resolution is too low. Braun & Sinha showed that the human observers can correctly identify a face with a very low resolution. So, the problem, they proposed, is that the computer used only internal features for face identification and ignore the external contour, which contained much information about face identity.
31.22 Ehinger & Oliva asked people to "make photo" in a scene. They found that most people have a large degree of agreement about which view to take. The view point they chose tend to be the place with largest area. Hence, people tend to shot the hall way in a room rather than the walls. people has less consistency in open space , such as parking lots. This study on psychology of photography, I think, would have a large impact.
31.23 It is an interesting idea to have a 3D puffball to fill up a 2D figure before segment it.
34.13 Gheorghiu & Kingdom had their observers adapted either a contour or a contour embedded in a texture and showed that adapting to a texture had less threshold elevation effect than adapting to a contour. In addition, such adaptation effect depends on the relative orientation between the contour and texture elements. This demonstrated a local and a global inhibitory interaction between texture and contour. Their studies may be quite relevant to my own work. I think that I need to pay more attention to their works.
35.12 Geisler proposed a multiple point Baysian statistics that may better summarize the characteristics of a nature image. This approach sound interesting. However, the talk is quite mathematical and lacks many details. Thus, I should pay more attention to the development of this study.
41.13 Sinha et al. studied the re-emergence of several visual cortical functions of a group of patients following their surgery of re-gaining eye sight. They found that regions of the brain selective for facial
responses, including the fusiform facial area (FFA) and occipital facial area
(OFA), developed after the onset of sight. This study is amazing and will have a huge impact on human development and neural plasticity studies.
42.16 Hong & Tong measured the cortical response to form based color filling with SVM. They found all areas from V1 to V4 can tell the difference between two filling-in conditions whereas only V3 and beyond can tell real color from the induced one. Hence, they believe that filling-in is an ability of a higher functions.
43.316 The authors did an experiment that is almost identical to what we reported last year. I talked to both authors. They said that they read our JOV paper (Li & Chen, 2011) only after they submit their abstract.
52.25. It is a super interesting idea that an angry face can be described as nothing but a letter 'X'.
54.12. The authors used the tomographic method, commonly used in CY scan, for pRF computation with fMRI.
54.15. The authors compared two theories for the TMS effect: neural responses suppression and noise increment. They measured psychometric function for orientation discrimination after the observers adapted to either blank screen or a flickering grating and the target threshold was measured with or without applying TMS pulse. The psychometric function shifted to the right after adapting to patterns, indicating a reduce of sensitivity. The TMS pulse shifted the psychometric function for the unadapted condition to the right but the one for the adapted condition to the left. The authors claim this effect rejected noise increment theory. The constant asymptotic level across condition, according to the author, should reject response suppression theory.
I think that the author made several mistakes here. The same asymptotic level for psychometric function has nothing to do with sensitivity. It is about performance, and one cannot have a performance better than perfect. The noise effect should influence the slope of the psychometric function (some raised this comment after the talk), not location. Hence, the location argument is also flawed. The better method to attack the same issue should be noise masking and TvC functions.
53.414 It is a rare visualization study in VSS.
61.11 Petrov compared VEPs for Full field and a sum of quarter fields.I should pay attention to the development of this project.
62.12 Spatiotemporal multi-voxel pattern classification? Worth to try.
We actually did a similar thing in our work on White illusion (Lin & Chen, 2010). Maybe we should try more effects along this line.
26.534 This my favorite presentation on the second day of the meeting Motoyoshi asked why western classical paintings emphasize so much on shading while their Eastern counterparts on outlines. The difference between these two approaches are obvious, with an emphasis on shading, figures in Western paintings tend to have more depth and look more realistic whose those in Eastern painting look flat and artificial. Motoyoshi suggested that the answer may be in the luminance statistics in the respective environment. In the dry Mediterranean region, illumination tends to be highly directional. As a result, there are always a lot shadows and highlights on a figure. On the other hand, in the humid Asian coastal regions, the illumination tend to be diffused. Shadows and highlights are limited. Hence, the artists of these two cultures were both trying their best depicting the reality around them.
If so, I believe that artists from San Francisco would paint like Asians even though their training are western.
22.11 One influential theory about crowding is that the target detection mechanism tend to integrate information from a wide region that covers the flankers. As a result, it is difficult to detect the target without the interference from the flankers. Ester et al. did a target orientation identification experiment in the presence of flanker with different orientation. They found that the error pattern (the distribution of orientation identification error) was not affected by the flanker orientation and thus
concluded that there is no evidence for the spatial summation model for crowding.
23.520. It is known that it is difficult for a computer to identify a face in a captured image if the face is too small or the resolution is too low. Braun & Sinha showed that the human observers can correctly identify a face with a very low resolution. So, the problem, they proposed, is that the computer used only internal features for face identification and ignore the external contour, which contained much information about face identity.
31.22 Ehinger & Oliva asked people to "make photo" in a scene. They found that most people have a large degree of agreement about which view to take. The view point they chose tend to be the place with largest area. Hence, people tend to shot the hall way in a room rather than the walls. people has less consistency in open space , such as parking lots. This study on psychology of photography, I think, would have a large impact.
31.23 It is an interesting idea to have a 3D puffball to fill up a 2D figure before segment it.
34.13 Gheorghiu & Kingdom had their observers adapted either a contour or a contour embedded in a texture and showed that adapting to a texture had less threshold elevation effect than adapting to a contour. In addition, such adaptation effect depends on the relative orientation between the contour and texture elements. This demonstrated a local and a global inhibitory interaction between texture and contour. Their studies may be quite relevant to my own work. I think that I need to pay more attention to their works.
35.12 Geisler proposed a multiple point Baysian statistics that may better summarize the characteristics of a nature image. This approach sound interesting. However, the talk is quite mathematical and lacks many details. Thus, I should pay more attention to the development of this study.
41.13 Sinha et al. studied the re-emergence of several visual cortical functions of a group of patients following their surgery of re-gaining eye sight. They found that regions of the brain selective for facial
responses, including the fusiform facial area (FFA) and occipital facial area
(OFA), developed after the onset of sight. This study is amazing and will have a huge impact on human development and neural plasticity studies.
42.16 Hong & Tong measured the cortical response to form based color filling with SVM. They found all areas from V1 to V4 can tell the difference between two filling-in conditions whereas only V3 and beyond can tell real color from the induced one. Hence, they believe that filling-in is an ability of a higher functions.
43.316 The authors did an experiment that is almost identical to what we reported last year. I talked to both authors. They said that they read our JOV paper (Li & Chen, 2011) only after they submit their abstract.
52.25. It is a super interesting idea that an angry face can be described as nothing but a letter 'X'.
54.12. The authors used the tomographic method, commonly used in CY scan, for pRF computation with fMRI.
54.15. The authors compared two theories for the TMS effect: neural responses suppression and noise increment. They measured psychometric function for orientation discrimination after the observers adapted to either blank screen or a flickering grating and the target threshold was measured with or without applying TMS pulse. The psychometric function shifted to the right after adapting to patterns, indicating a reduce of sensitivity. The TMS pulse shifted the psychometric function for the unadapted condition to the right but the one for the adapted condition to the left. The authors claim this effect rejected noise increment theory. The constant asymptotic level across condition, according to the author, should reject response suppression theory.
I think that the author made several mistakes here. The same asymptotic level for psychometric function has nothing to do with sensitivity. It is about performance, and one cannot have a performance better than perfect. The noise effect should influence the slope of the psychometric function (some raised this comment after the talk), not location. Hence, the location argument is also flawed. The better method to attack the same issue should be noise masking and TvC functions.
53.414 It is a rare visualization study in VSS.
61.11 Petrov compared VEPs for Full field and a sum of quarter fields.I should pay attention to the development of this project.
62.12 Spatiotemporal multi-voxel pattern classification? Worth to try.
2011年4月24日 星期日
為什麼你沒看見大猩猩: "The Invisible Gorilla"
"Any typos or errors in this article are due to inattentional blindness and thus a demonstration of the content of this book"
About a month ago, the editor for the Chinese edition of the book "The Invisible Gorilla" wanted me to write a promotion foreword for this book. Since the editor was one of my former students, it was quite difficult to say no. So, I did just that. The edited version of my article can be found here.
It is a weird experience. When the editor called me about this project, I suddenly recalled a lot of detail about the first time I encountered the work by the authors in a conference 14 years ago. I was even able to remember where I sat in the conference room and the dining table for the lunch afterward. Since this book does mention flash memory, I decided to start my essay with that. Maybe I-Ping, Suling, Chia-Hui, and Jing-ling who had that lunch with me, can check whether my memory was consistent with theirs.
In that foreword, I did not say anything critical about the book because (1) I understood that this was supposed to be a promotion material and (2) I was reading the English version of the book for the Chinese version was not available to me before the deadline. Now, the book is published. To balance my overly positive article, I think that I should mention some negative points here. First of all, sometimes, the authors may stretch their reasoning too far. While this book is for general public and thus some exaggeration to make the book more interesting is almost necessary, too wild a speculation can actually reduce the credibility of the book. Second, the quality of the last two chapters (and to some degree, the third chapter) is significantly worse than the other part of the book. For the same material, there are better books on the market. So, if you have limited time, just read the first four chapters (or the first two, if you are really busy). This difference in quality may reflect the research focus of the authors. Third, obviously, the translator has little background in Psychology or cognitive science. I only received the Chinese version a couple days ago and can find several things just not right after a few minutes of browsing. So,if you can, get the English version.
After I submitted my articles. I talked to the editor about some corrections made to that articles and how bad I was in making typos (anyone who read this far should notice that already). Suddenly, a flash idea came to my mind. What happened next is that I should thank the editor for allowing me to put the sentence "Any typos or errors in this article are due to inattentional blindness and thus a demonstration of the content of this book" at the end of my article.
About a month ago, the editor for the Chinese edition of the book "The Invisible Gorilla" wanted me to write a promotion foreword for this book. Since the editor was one of my former students, it was quite difficult to say no. So, I did just that. The edited version of my article can be found here.
It is a weird experience. When the editor called me about this project, I suddenly recalled a lot of detail about the first time I encountered the work by the authors in a conference 14 years ago. I was even able to remember where I sat in the conference room and the dining table for the lunch afterward. Since this book does mention flash memory, I decided to start my essay with that. Maybe I-Ping, Suling, Chia-Hui, and Jing-ling who had that lunch with me, can check whether my memory was consistent with theirs.
In that foreword, I did not say anything critical about the book because (1) I understood that this was supposed to be a promotion material and (2) I was reading the English version of the book for the Chinese version was not available to me before the deadline. Now, the book is published. To balance my overly positive article, I think that I should mention some negative points here. First of all, sometimes, the authors may stretch their reasoning too far. While this book is for general public and thus some exaggeration to make the book more interesting is almost necessary, too wild a speculation can actually reduce the credibility of the book. Second, the quality of the last two chapters (and to some degree, the third chapter) is significantly worse than the other part of the book. For the same material, there are better books on the market. So, if you have limited time, just read the first four chapters (or the first two, if you are really busy). This difference in quality may reflect the research focus of the authors. Third, obviously, the translator has little background in Psychology or cognitive science. I only received the Chinese version a couple days ago and can find several things just not right after a few minutes of browsing. So,if you can, get the English version.
After I submitted my articles. I talked to the editor about some corrections made to that articles and how bad I was in making typos (anyone who read this far should notice that already). Suddenly, a flash idea came to my mind. What happened next is that I should thank the editor for allowing me to put the sentence "Any typos or errors in this article are due to inattentional blindness and thus a demonstration of the content of this book" at the end of my article.
2011年3月6日 星期日
本日笑點
今日＂視察＂本校的系所博覽會。出發前，在lab遇到Jolly，她自稱從未參加這樣的活動，所以就把她帶著去了。反正，以Jolly一貫的Cosplay式的穿著，倒也蠻適合這樣的場合。
起先，一路無事。但在路過生科系的攤子時，一個男同學把我們攔了下來。
生科男:同學，對生科有沒有興趣。
我:你就說說看吧!(雖然今年沒有出公差，不用給各系的攤位打分數，但前些年被迫連當數年評審所養成習慣不改)
生科男:(對Jolly)妹妹現在幾年級。
Jolly: ......（似乎不知如何應付）。
我：她現在二年級。
生科男:喔！好！（開始介紹生科系）....
........（數分鐘後）
生科男:那爸爸媽媽有什麼問題嘛？
我：（楞了一下，環顧四週，確定他在跟我說話，火大）同學，第一，我沒那麼老。第二，她現在二年級是碩士班二年級。你應該要叫她學姐。
生科男:.... (滿面通紅，沒看過有人可以臉紅的這麼快）。
起先，一路無事。但在路過生科系的攤子時，一個男同學把我們攔了下來。
生科男:同學，對生科有沒有興趣。
我:你就說說看吧!(雖然今年沒有出公差，不用給各系的攤位打分數，但前些年被迫連當數年評審所養成習慣不改)
生科男:(對Jolly)妹妹現在幾年級。
Jolly: ......（似乎不知如何應付）。
我：她現在二年級。
生科男:喔！好！（開始介紹生科系）....
........（數分鐘後）
生科男:那爸爸媽媽有什麼問題嘛？
我：（楞了一下，環顧四週，確定他在跟我說話，火大）同學，第一，我沒那麼老。第二，她現在二年級是碩士班二年級。你應該要叫她學姐。
生科男:.... (滿面通紅，沒看過有人可以臉紅的這麼快）。
2011年2月28日 星期一
Mark Twain's "The Innocents Abroad"
這本書是當時的年輕記者Mark Twain於1867採訪美國第一個赴歐觀光旅行團的報導。從此，觀光不再是個人或家庭的事。而是可以由業者集合一群原本不相識的人，包租郵輪，旅館，導遊所進行的商業活動。在一百多年後的台灣，當時是全國性大新聞，俄國沙皇要親自接見的旅行團，可以說是習以為常。反倒是，原本在一百四十年前大家習以為常的旅遊方式，在台灣成了會讓老同事們嘖嘖稱奇的"自由行"。
Mark Twain 的詼諧幽默但又一針見血的評論永遠會讓讀者拍案稱奇，擊掌叫好。這本書(他的第一本非小說類著作)也不例外。有趣的是，文中所述的許多歐洲國家的社會現象和景色以及觀光客的行徑。和今日的狀況相去不遠。比如說，郵輪上的旅客絕大多數是退休老人，導遊只想帶遊客到"特約商店"購物而非參觀景點(原來導遊的行為模式從第一個旅行團開始至今不變，真是歷史悠久)。
Mark Twain在法國和義大利的行程的大部，我在他一百三，四十年後也同樣造訪。如果不曉得書名和作者，我可能會覺得該書所描述的就是近幾年的旅遊經歷。個個景點姑且不論，連社會現象也所去不遠。比如說，Naples的髒亂，垃圾往往從天而降(垃圾就從住家窗戶往街上倒)，也是我整整在一百四十年後所親眼目睹(知道和Mark Twain看到一樣的景象，當初的不快略有消減)。他在巴黎餐廳點菜的遭遇，也讓我心有戚戚焉。當然，這一百四十年還是有些不一樣:我們現在可以搭Funicular而非騾子上維蘇威火山。
本書略有不足的，還是在翻譯。其實，這本書的譯筆要算好的。只是，譯者明顯的不熟悉歐洲語言和史地。誤譯處所在多有。法國和義大利的部分，我很容易看出這些誤譯或誤註，然後在心裡把它改正。但希臘，黑海，中東的部分，則指好聽天由命了。另外，譯者把coach翻成汽車，而非常用的驛馬車，更讓人有時光錯置的感覺。
Mark Twain 的詼諧幽默但又一針見血的評論永遠會讓讀者拍案稱奇，擊掌叫好。這本書(他的第一本非小說類著作)也不例外。有趣的是，文中所述的許多歐洲國家的社會現象和景色以及觀光客的行徑。和今日的狀況相去不遠。比如說，郵輪上的旅客絕大多數是退休老人，導遊只想帶遊客到"特約商店"購物而非參觀景點(原來導遊的行為模式從第一個旅行團開始至今不變，真是歷史悠久)。
Mark Twain在法國和義大利的行程的大部，我在他一百三，四十年後也同樣造訪。如果不曉得書名和作者，我可能會覺得該書所描述的就是近幾年的旅遊經歷。個個景點姑且不論，連社會現象也所去不遠。比如說，Naples的髒亂，垃圾往往從天而降(垃圾就從住家窗戶往街上倒)，也是我整整在一百四十年後所親眼目睹(知道和Mark Twain看到一樣的景象，當初的不快略有消減)。他在巴黎餐廳點菜的遭遇，也讓我心有戚戚焉。當然，這一百四十年還是有些不一樣:我們現在可以搭Funicular而非騾子上維蘇威火山。
本書略有不足的，還是在翻譯。其實，這本書的譯筆要算好的。只是，譯者明顯的不熟悉歐洲語言和史地。誤譯處所在多有。法國和義大利的部分，我很容易看出這些誤譯或誤註，然後在心裡把它改正。但希臘，黑海，中東的部分，則指好聽天由命了。另外，譯者把coach翻成汽車，而非常用的驛馬車，更讓人有時光錯置的感覺。
訂閱：
文章 (Atom)