Mechanisms of Multiple-Element Stimulus Discrimination

9307247 Cook 这项研究的目标是了解包括人类在内的动物如何快速看到和识别视觉对象。 库克博士的新研究详细阐述了他之前由 NSF 支持的研究，该研究着眼于鸽子对纹理刺激的感知和处理。 这些鸟类是比较视觉研究的理想选择，因为飞行过程中对准确和快速感知的需求，再加上最小化体重的需要，导致它们进化出非常小但强大的视觉系统。 这使它们成为关于小型神经系统如何解决非常复杂的感知问题的比较信息的丰富来源。 结合对人类和其他动物的研究，结果将有助于确定许多物种所共有的和独特的一般规则和机制。 先前工作的一个含义是，鸽子和人类视觉处理的早期阶段具有许多共同特征。 这项新研究继续探讨这个问题，通过调查刺激驱动和主体驱动过程在区分鸽子和人类（适当时）多元素刺激的过程中的贡献。 除了其心理影响外，这项研究的信息还将在小型、自给自足的智能机器人工程以及为视障人士开发紧凑型视觉假肢方面具有潜在的实际应用。

9307247 Cook The goal of this research is to understand how animals, including humans, rapidly see and recognize visual objects. Dr. Cook's new research elaborates on his prior NSF-supported research looking at the perception and processing of textured stimuli by pigeons. These birds are ideal for comparative visual studies because the demands for accurate and rapid perception during flight, in conjunction with the need to minimize body weight, have caused them to evolve very small, but powerful, visual systems. This makes them a rich source of comparative information about how small nervous systems solve the very complex problems of perception. In conjunction with research investigating humans and other animals, the results will help to identify those general rules and mechanisms shared by many species and those that are unique. One implication of the prior work was that the early stages of visual processing in pigeons and humans share many common characteristics. The new research continues to examine this issue by investigating the contributions of stimulus-driven and subject-driven processes in the discrimination of multi-element stimuli by pigeons, and by humans when appropriate. Besides its psychological implications, information from this research will have potential practical applications in the engineering of small, self- sufficient, intelligent robots and the development of compact visual prostheses for the visually impaired.