Vision and Visual Perception

• What are the two fundamental ways to estimate visual motion in 1-D? To what extent do these methods estimate speed? What experimental support exists for either method in flies or mammals.
• Give a definition of optical flow. What is the "aperture problem"? How can it be solved?
• What is the basic idea inherent in stereo algorithms that use binocular (horizontal) disparity? Describe one or two such algorithms. What is the "stereo correspondence problem"?
• What do you know about the psychophysics (and some physiology) of color processing in primates? Describe briefly the ``trichromacy" vs. ``opponency" theories of color processing.
• Define a "psychometric curve." How would it look for a spatial hyperacuity task? Can you explain the performance of the system on dot-discrimination and line-alignment (Vernier) tasks in terms of the mechanisms of the retina and the primary visual cortex?
• List all the cues that allow one to perform image segmentation. Describe one algorithm for image segmentation.
• What do you know about the psychophysics and neurophysiology of selective, visual (focal) attention? What could the computational roles of this process be? How might attention relate to visual perception and to visual awareness?
• Describe the two major pathways in the visual system of the primate. Why are there so many visual cortical areas?
• What different types of eye movements exists and what to you know of their underlying neuronal substrate?
• "Neglect" and "Blindsight" patients have specific cortical lesions. Describe their deficits and what we can learn from them, in particular with regards to the neuronal correlate of consciousness.

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