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Iris Balodis Scientific Teaching Fellows Course Teachable Tidbit: Face Perception

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Students Cognitive Neuroscience Course 3 rd or 4 th year Undergraduates Majors in Psychology Previous Courses: Psyc100, Brain & Behaviour, Perception Have prepared for class by reading the relevant chapter ahead of time

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Textbook Gazzaniga, M., Ivry, R.B. & Mangun, G.R. Cognitive Neuroscience: The Biology of the Mind, 3 rd Edition, WW Norton & Company: New York. Chapter 6 Object Recognition Face Recognition

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Learning GoalsLearning Objectives Understand neural systems underlying cognitive functions in the brain Use and apply knowledge of brain systems flexibly To gain experience reading/understanding original papers in cognitive neuroscience To describe key perspectives in cognitive neuroscience Be able to critically think about the evidence Understand how the visual system processes complex information Be able to apply knowledge to particular case studies Discuss recent studies in visual perception Discuss/Debate evidence for key perspectives in cognitive neuroscience To bridge material between different areas (e.g. chapters from basic sensation/perception to higher cognitive processes).

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Clicker Questions Purpose Retrieve information from last week Anonymous Thought Question for material this week

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In response to the light, this cell in the Lateral Geniculate Nucleus will: A) Increase its firing rate B) Decrease its firing rate C) Wont change its firing rate D) LGN cells dont respond to light

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Retrieval of Previous Weeks Material Applies repeated retrieval of previous information Clicker Questions Anonymous 2 questions from last week 1 from this week 1 broader thought question.

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2 Visual Processing Streams

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Failures of Object Recognition Visual Agnosias: Damage to where pathway Damage to what pathway Prosopagnosia

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Learning GoalsLearning Objectives Understand neural systems underlying cognitive functions in the brain Use and apply knowledge of brain systems flexibly To gain experience reading/understanding original papers in cognitive neuroscience To describe key perspectives in cognitive neuroscience Be able to critically think about the evidence Understand how the visual system processes complex information Be able to apply knowledge to particular case studies Discuss recent studies in visual perception Discuss/Debate evidence for key perspectives in cognitive neuroscience To bridge material between different areas (e.g. chapters from basic sensation/perception to higher cognitive processes).

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Case Study Purpose: apply information learned in the text to a specific example. Think-Pair-Share technique Discuss with one or two other classmates Call on 2 or 3 groups to share answers with the class

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Case Study You are a neurologist and Jim is your patient who recently suffered a stroke. Even though you just saw him in your clinic 2 days ago, he doesnt recognize you when he walks into the room. What condition(s) might he have? What types of tests might you run? What brain networks and areas might be affected by the stroke?

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May have prosopagnosia Test basic vision, basic memory tests, test perceptual categorization (e.g. Unusual Views Object Test), prosopagnosia tests Damage to What Pathway Ventral Stream Particularly in inferior temporal lobe and fusiform gyrus

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Grandmother Cells Refers to a neuron that responds to highly specific, complex and meaningful stimuli i.e. a single percept or concept.

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Whats in a face?

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Quiroga et al., 2005

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Learning GoalsLearning Objectives Understand neural systems underlying cognitive functions in the brain Use and apply knowledge of brain systems flexibly To gain experience reading/understanding original papers in cognitive neuroscience To describe key perspectives in cognitive neuroscience Be able to critically think about the evidence Understand how the visual system processes complex information Be able to apply knowledge to particular case studies Discuss recent studies in visual perception Discuss/Debate evidence for key perspectives in cognitive neuroscience To bridge material between different areas (e.g. chapters from basic sensation/perception to higher cognitive processes).

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Debate Team As part of a debating team, defend the argument that the brain has evolved a specialized system for perceiving faces. Defend the argument that face perception reflects the operation of a highly experienced system that is good at making fine discriminations.

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Gets at fundamental debate in visual processing research Whether brain systems are equipped with: a general intelligence or capability to perform functions Distributed cognitive & neural processing a developed specificity in particular cortical regions for a high-level cognitive function (e.g. face perception). Swiss-Army Knife Analogy

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Learning GoalsLearning Objectives Understand neural systems underlying cognitive functions in the brain Use and apply knowledge of brain systems flexibly To gain experience reading/understanding original papers in cognitive neuroscience To describe key perspectives in cognitive neuroscience Be able to critically think about the evidence Understand how the visual system processes complex information Be able to apply knowledge to particular case studies Discuss recent studies in visual perception Discuss/Debate evidence for key perspectives in cognitive neuroscience To bridge material between different areas (e.g. chapters from basic sensation/perception to higher cognitive processes).

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Group Activity Describe the neural cascade of events that would occur from perceiving a visual stimulus, to recognizing it as Halle Berrys face.