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2007年03月28日

 ■ Allison B. Sekuler教授,Patrick J. Bennett教授講演会

日本-カナダ保健・医学協力事業の一環としてAllison B. Sekuler教授および Patrick J. Bennett教授が来日し,産業技術総合研究所,京都大学にて2回の講演会を開催致します.彼らは運動視,注意,顔・物体認知,知覚学習,高齢者・自閉症者の知覚・認知等について,心理物理,Classification Image,脳波,MRI手法を駆使し幅広い研究を行っています.本講演ではこれらの中から顔認知,知覚学習に焦点を当てトークしていただきます.

<講演内容>
Identifying Human Faces
Patrick J. Bennett
Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour
McMaster University
Home Page: http://psycserv.mcmaster.ca/bennett/

Perceptual learning of complex patterns
Allison B. Sekuler,
Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour
McMaster University
Home Page: http://psycserv.mcmaster.ca/sekuler/

※上記講演は産業技術総合研究所および京都大学にて2回行われます.

<第1回 @産業技術総合研究所>
日時:2007年3月28日 (水) 15:00 - 17:30
会場:産業技術総合研究所 中央第6 6-11棟 2階 第4-5会議室
会場地図: http://www.aist.go.jp/aist_j/guidemap/tsukuba/center/tsukuba_map_c06.html
交通アクセス: http://www.aist.go.jp/aist_j/guidemap/tsukuba/center/tsukuba_map_c.html
※ご注意:中央第6-11棟受付に入所登録を行い,名札を受け取ってから6-11棟にお入りください.

司会:永井 聖剛(産業技術総合研究所)
主催:日本-カナダ保健・医学協力事業
共催:産業技術総合研究所人間福祉医工学研究部門

<第2回 @京都大学>
日時:2007年3月30日 (金) 15:00 - 17:30
会場:京都大学総合人間学部 人間・環境学研究科 人間・環境学研究科棟233室
会場地図:http://www.h.kyoto-u.ac.jp/soujin/welcome/map.html
交通アクセス:http://www.h.kyoto-u.ac.jp/soujin/welcome/access.html

司会:齋木 潤(京都大学)
主催:日本-カナダ保健・医学協力事業
共催:京都大学21世紀COEプログラム「こころの働きの総合的研究教育拠点」

本件に関するお問い合わせは永井聖剛まで(masayoshi-nagai@aist.go.jp)

******** 以下,講演要旨 ********
Identifying Human Faces

Patrick J. Bennett
Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour
McMaster University

We are remarkably adept at perceiving faces. A single, brief glance often is sufficient for us to determine a person's age, gender, emotional state, and identity. Our apparent expertise at perceiving faces, as well as the social significance of such stimuli, has lead to the suggestion that we have perceptual mechanisms that are specialized for processing information conveyed by human faces. This expertise and related specialized processing applies only to upright faces, however, presumably because we have little experience with inverted faces. Nevertheless, there is evidence that suggests that, at least in some circumstances, human observers are remarkably inefficient at processing upright faces. In my talk, I will describe several experiments that show that typical adults, as well as adults with autism, use only a very small percentage of the available information to identify pictures of upright faces. This inefficiency is due, in part, to the fact that observers identify faces on the basis of information in a small spatial region near the eye(s) and brow(s). Another reason that we are so inefficient at identifying faces is that we rely on information conveyed at a particular spatial scale (i.e., a narrow range of spatial frequencies). Surprisingly, these constraints on identification apply similarly to both upright and inverted faces. Indeed, our evidence suggests that the dramatic difference between our perception of upright and inverted faces reflects subtle, quantitative differences in face processing, rather than the operation of qualitatively different mechanisms. These results suggest that the mechanisms used to identify upright and inverted faces may be more similar than previously believed.

****************

Perceptual learning of complex patterns

Allison B. Sekuler
Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour
McMaster University

Performance in perceptual tasks often improves with practice. This effect is known as ‘perceptual learning,’ and it has been the source of a great deal of interest and debate over the course of the last century. In the context of signal detection theory, the improvements that take place with perceptual learning can be due to increases in internal signal strength or decreases in internal noise. Using a range of psychophysical techniques, including external noise masking and double-pass response consistency, we have shown that perceptual learning of complex patterns, such as faces and textures, is mediated predominantly by increases in internal signal strength, with no change in internal noise. Further studies, using the response classification technique, have enabled us to visualize of the changes that occur with learning. Interestingly, the results for learned versus unlearned stimuli mirror those for upright versus inverted faces, lending support to the idea that the inversion effect in faces is an example of life-long learning. We have explored this idea further by showing that we can induce inversion effects in non-face stimuli (e.g., houses and textures) as a function of learning, and we have recently begun to explore the effects of such learning on neural systems using both functional magnetic resonance imaging and electroencephalography. The results of these experiments place constraints on our models of perceptual learning, and provide insights into how these techniques can be used to further our understanding of the effects of atypical developmental trajectories, such as those seen in individuals with autism.

投稿者 office : 2007年03月28日 19:47