2008 Sensory Coding and The Natural Environment Gordon Research Conference

描述（由申请人提供）：这是一项支持关于感觉编码和自然环境主题的两年一次的国际会议的提案。会议的主题是高度跨学科的，借鉴了系统和认知神经科学，感知心理学，统计学，信号处理和计算机科学的专业知识。其目的是模拟和理解与自然环境的统计结构相关的感觉过程。这种方法广泛适用于任何生物体的任何感觉模态。过去十年的一些研究表明，自然世界的统计结构是复杂的，但在环境和感官模式中相当相似。此外，许多动物的感觉编码策略通常很好地适应了它们的自然感觉环境，特别是在视觉和听觉领域。描述自然场景的统计数据和它们引起的复杂的自适应神经反应被认为具有很大的潜力，可以揭示神经信息处理策略，以及推进能够将自然声音和图像转换为大脑可解释格式的神经假体的发展。更重要的是，有必要教育学生和目前的调查人员有关的技术，方法和类型的结果出现在这个领域。1997年、2000年、2002年、2004年和2006年就这一专题举行了五次会议。从2002年开始，这些会议被称为戈登研究会议。从这次会议补助金的资金将使我们能够邀请该领域的专家参加两年一度的戈登研究会议，以及提供会议费和/或旅行费用，以青年科学家，学生和博士后有兴趣参加会议和了解该领域。这笔赠款将部分资助两年一次的感官编码和自然环境国际会议，该会议将汇集一组来自不同科学学科和不同感官模式的研究人员，学生和博士后，以了解自然世界的统计结构以及感官系统如何适应处理这些信号。表征自然刺激诱发的复杂神经反应对于推进能够将自然声音和图像转换为大脑可解释的格式的假体的开发至关重要。会议满足了大型神经科学会议之间的一个关键利基，会议根据大脑区域和计算会议划分，不强烈关注自然环境，小格式为学生和研究人员提供了极好的机会，让他们接触到意想不到的见解并建立新的合作。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This is a proposal to support a biennial international meeting on the topic of Sensory Coding and the Natural Environment. The theme of the meeting is highly interdisciplinary, drawing upon expertise in systems and cognitive neuroscience, perceptual psychology, statistics, signal processing, and computer science. The aim is to model and understand sensory processes in relation to the statistical structure of the natural environment. This approach is broadly applicable to any sensory modality of any organism. A number of studies over the past decade have shown that the statistical structure of the natural world is complex, but rather similar across environments and sensory modalities. Furthermore, sensory coding strategies of many animals are often well-adapted to their natural sensory environment, especially in the visual and auditory domains. Characterizing natural scene statistics and the complex, adaptive neural responses they elicit is thought to have great potential for shedding light on neural information processing strategies, as well as advancing the development of neural prostheses capable of transforming natural sound and images into a format interpretable by the brain. More importantly, there is a need to educate both students and current investigators about the techniques, methodologies, and types of results emerging from this field. Five previous meetings have been held on this topic, in 1997, 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006. Starting in 2002, the meetings have been held as Gordon Research Conferences. Funding from this conference grant will enable us to invite experts in the field to a biennial Gordon Research Conference, as well as to provide conference fees and/or travel costs to young scientists, students and -postdocs interested in attending the meeting and learning about the field. This grant will partially fund a biennial international meeting on Sensory Coding and the Natural Environment, which will bring together a group of researchers, students, and postdocs from across scientific disciplines and from across sensory modalities to learn about the statistical structure of the natural world and how sensory systems are adapted to process these signals. Characterizing the complex neural responses evoked by naturalistic stimuli is essential for advancing the development of prostheses capable of transforming natural sound and images into a format interpretable by the brain. The meeting fulfills a key niche between large neuroscience meetings with sessions divided according to brain region and computational meetings that do not focus strongly on the natural environment, and the small format provides excellent opportunities for students and researchers to be exposed to unanticipated insights and forge new collaborations.