PS 824: Cognitive Psychology
Please direct all your questions and comments by electronic mail to Professor Michele Rucci .

The course is intended primarily for Psychology graduate students. All students wishing to take this course should discuss it with their advisor.

Course Syllabus

A pdf of the course syllabus is available here: Download Syllabus
 

Course organization

Classes will meet on Thursday from 2:00 to 4:00 in 64 Cummington Street.
 

Topics and Readings

BU students can download the lecture notes and other material from the links below:

Week 1: Introduction.

Week 2: Vision during eye movements.

Martinez-Conde S, Macknik SL, Hubel DH. 2004. The role of fixational eye movements in visual perception. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 5:229-240. download
M. Rucci, Fixational eye movements, natural image statistics, and fine spatial vision. Network: Computation in Neural Systems, 19 (4), 253-285, 2008. download
M. Rucci, R. Iovin, M. Poletti, and F. Santini (2007), Miniature Eye Movements Enhance Fine Spatial Detail, Nature 447(7146), 851-854. download
Steinman RM, Haddad GM, Skavenski AA, Wyman D. 1973. Miniature eye movement. Science 181:810-819. download

Week 3: Mechanisms of Autokinesis: Why is the star moving?

Levy, J. (1972). Autokinetic illusion: A systematic review of theories, measures, and independent variables. Psychological Bulletin, 78 (6), 457-474. download
Verheijen, F. J. & Oosting, H. (1964). Mechanism of visual autokinesis. Nature, 202 (4936), 979-981. download
Matin, L. & MacKinnon, G. E. (1964). Autokinetic movement: Selective manipulation of directional components by image stabilization. Science, 10 (143), 147-148. download
Gregory, R. L. & Zangwill, O. L. (1963). The origin of the autokinetic effect. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 15 (252), 263-275. download


Week 4: Stability of the visual scene: Why is the world not moving?

Liz Thompson and Jonathan Dobres  

Murakami I, Cavanagh P. 1998. A jitter after-effect reveals motion-based stabilization of vision. Nature 395:798-801. download
Gregory, R. L. (1958). Eye movements and the stability of the visual world. Nature, 182 (1214), 253-259. download
MacKay D. M. (1972) Visual Stability. Investigative Ophthalmology. 154:197. download
Galletti C, Fattori P. (2003) Neuronal mechanisms for detection of motion in the field of view. Neuropsychologia 411717–1727. download
Cullen KE. Sensory signals during active versus passive movement. Curr Opin Neurobiol. 2004 Dec;14(6):698-706. download


Week 5:  Transsaccadic stability: Is the stimulus still there?

Erin Hatch and Becky Stevens

Wurtz RH. (2008) Neuronal mechanisms of visual stability. Vision Res. 2008 Sep;48(20):2070-89. download
Bridgeman B. (2007) Efference copy and its limitations. Computers in Biology and Medicine, 37, 924-929. download
Koch, C. & Deubel. H. (2007). How postsaccadic visual structure affects the detection of intrasaccadic target displacements. In: Van Gompel, R.P.G., Fischer, M.F., Murray, W.S., & Hill, R.L., Eye Movements: A Window on Mind and Brain. Oxford: Elsevier, pp 193-212.download
Deubel, H., Bridgeman, B., & Schneider, W. X. (1998). Immediate post-saccadic information mediates space constancy. Vision Research, 38, 3147-3159.download


Week 6:  Transsaccadic stability: Is the stimulus still there?

Jonathan Lansey and Paul Sullivan

Wexler M, Ouarti N. Depth affects where we look. Curr Biol. 2008 Dec 9;18(23):1872-6.download
Wexler M. Anticipating the three-dimensional consequences of eye movements. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2005 Jan 25;102(4):1246-51. download
Berry, M. J. , Brivanlou, I. H. , Jordan, T. A. & Meister, M. Nature 398, 334–338 (1999).download
Nefs HT, Harris JM. Induced motion in depth and the effects of vergence eye movements. J Vis. 2008 Mar 12;8(3):8.1-16. download
T Haarmeier, P Thier, M Repnow & D Petersen False perception of motion in a patient who cannot compensate for eye movements Nature 389, 849-852 (23 October 1997). download
 A. H. Reinhardt-Rutland (1988). Induced Movement in the Visual Modality: An Overview. download

Week 7:  Impact of eye movements on retinal responses.

Chris De Nicola and Andreas Elpidorou

Olveczky BP, Baccus SA, Meister M. 2003. Segregation of object and background motion in the retina. Nature 423:401-408. download
Greschner M, Bongard M, Rujan P, Ammermuller J. 2002. Retinal ganglion cell synchronization by fixational eye movements improves feature estimation. Nature Neuroscience 5:341-347.download

Week 8: Visual functions of microsaccades. Why are my eyes jumping?

Jonathan Lansey and Meghan Lethem

Collewijn, H., & Kowler, E. (2008). The significance of microsaccades for vision and oculomotor control. Journal of Vision, 8(14):20, 1-21
Martinez-Conde, S., Macknik, S. L., Troncoso, X. G., & Dyar, T. A. (2006). Microsaccades counteract visual fading during fixation. Neuron, 49, 297-305.
Ditchburn, R. W. (1980). The function of small saccades. Vision Research, 20, 271-272.
Kowler, E., and Steinman, R.M. (1979). Miniature saccades: eye movements that do not count. Vision Res. 19, 105-108.


Week 9: Impact of fixational eye movements on cortical responses.

Elizabeth Thompson and Tara Lukens

Snodderly DM, Kagan I, Gur M. (2001) Selective activation of visual cortex neurons by fixational eye movements: implications for neural coding. Vis Neurosci. 18(2):259-77.
Kagan, I., Gur, M., & Snodderly, D. M. (2008). Saccades and drifts differentially modulate neuronal activity in V1: Effects of retinal image motion, position, and extraretinal influences. Journal of Vision, 8(14):19, 1-25
Martinez-Conde, S., Macknik, S. L., & Hubel, D. H. (2000). Microsaccadic eye movements and firing of single cells in the striate cortex of macaque monkeys. Nature Neuroscience, 3, 251-258.
Leopold DA, Logothetis NK. 1998. Microsaccades differentially modulate neural activity in the striate and extrastriate visual cortex. Experimental Brain Research 123:341-345.

Week 10 : Extracting motion in a moving retina. Is the stimulus really moving, or is it me?

Nakayama, K. & Tyler, C. W. (1978). Relative motion induced between stationary lines. Vision Research, 18, 1663-1668.
Murakami I. (2004) Correlations between fixation stability and visual motion sensitivity. Vision Research, 44, 751-761.
Mack, A., Fendrich, R., & Wong, E. (1982). Is perceived motion a stimulus for smooth pursuit. Vision Research, 22 (1), 77-88.
Shioiri, S., Ito, S., Sakurai, K., & Yaguchi, H. (2002). Detection of relative and uniform motion. Journal of the Optical Society of America A, 19, 2169-2179.

Week 11: Neural encoding with jittering eyes.

Ahissar E, Arieli A. 2001. Figuring space by time. Neuron 32:185-201.
Desbordes G, Rucci M. 2007. A model of the dynamics of retinal activity during natural visual fixation. Journal of Vision 24:217-230.
Pitkow X, Sompolinsky H, Meister M. 2007. A neural computation for visual acuity in the presence of eye movements. PLoS Biology 5:2898-2911.

Developed by Michele Rucci <rucci@cns.bu.edu>
Last modified:  Jan 15 2009