We open our eyes and almost instantly experience a rich and detailed visual world. This experience seems to be composed by two distinct types of visual processes that differ in their scale of operation. Global processes rapidly compute summary information, such as the average size of objects in a scene, but do not represent the details of any particular object. More local processes do represent the details of individual objects, but appear to operate on just one or a small number of objects at a time. Traditionally these processes have been investigated independently. The goal of the present project is to determine how these two different levels of processing interact. Specifically, we plan to determine how the global properties of a scene influence our ability to represent the specific local details of objects within that scene. The results of this project will have important implications for understanding how global image properties are represented and how those properties influence perception and memory for the local details of objects. This could provide valuable insight into the nature of vision problems in different populations (e.g., Alzheimer s disease and autism), which could be useful for diagnostic purposes or for the design of visual materials used in therapy. ? ?

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Eye Institute (NEI)
Type
Postdoctoral Individual National Research Service Award (F32)
Project #
5F32EY016982-03
Application #
7251446
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1-F12A (20))
Program Officer
Oberdorfer, Michael
Project Start
2005-08-19
Project End
2008-08-18
Budget Start
2007-08-19
Budget End
2008-08-18
Support Year
3
Fiscal Year
2007
Total Cost
$48,796
Indirect Cost
Name
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Department
Other Basic Sciences
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
001425594
City
Cambridge
State
MA
Country
United States
Zip Code
02139
Alvarez, George A; Gill, Jonathan; Cavanagh, Patrick (2012) Anatomical constraints on attention: hemifield independence is a signature of multifocal spatial selection. J Vis 12:9
Konkle, Talia; Brady, Timothy F; Alvarez, George A et al. (2010) Conceptual distinctiveness supports detailed visual long-term memory for real-world objects. J Exp Psychol Gen 139:558-78
Shim, Won Mok; Alvarez, G A; Vickery, T J et al. (2010) The number of attentional foci and their precision are dissociated in the posterior parietal cortex. Cereb Cortex 20:1341-9
Franconeri, S L; Bemis, D K; Alvarez, G A (2009) Number estimation relies on a set of segmented objects. Cognition 113:1-13
Battelli, Lorella; Alvarez, George A; Carlson, Thomas et al. (2009) The role of the parietal lobe in visual extinction studied with transcranial magnetic stimulation. J Cogn Neurosci 21:1946-55
Brady, Timothy F; Konkle, Talia; Alvarez, George A (2009) Compression in visual working memory: using statistical regularities to form more efficient memory representations. J Exp Psychol Gen 138:487-502
Alvarez, George A; Oliva, Aude (2009) Spatial ensemble statistics are efficient codes that can be represented with reduced attention. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 106:7345-50
Shim, Won Mok; Alvarez, George A; Jiang, Yuhong V (2008) Spatial separation between targets constrains maintenance of attention on multiple objects. Psychon Bull Rev 15:390-7
Brady, Timothy F; Konkle, Talia; Alvarez, George A et al. (2008) Visual long-term memory has a massive storage capacity for object details. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 105:14325-9
Alvarez, George A; Oliva, Aude (2008) The representation of simple ensemble visual features outside the focus of attention. Psychol Sci 19:392-8

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