Theoretical and Experimental Approaches to Auditory and Visual Attention
Sunday, April 20, 2008 to Wednesday, April 23, 2008.
The Banbury Center, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Long Island, NY (http://www.cshl.edu/banbury/index.html)
Sponsored by the Swartz Foundation (http://www.theswartzfoundation.org)
Organizers
John H. Reynolds
The Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Jonathan B. Fritz
University of Maryland
Conference Overview
Research in the human and macaque has provided a wealth of information on the neural mechanisms that mediate visual attention. Recent psychoacoustic and neurophysiological studies of attention in the auditory system, and research on interactions of visual and auditory attention, have added considerably to this picture. These studies have found parallels with visual attention mechanisms but have also raised new questions, such as the role of adaptive plastic changes in spectrotemporal receptive field shape during selective attention and the nature of the coordination of attention-driven changes at multiple processing levels from cochlea to cortex. The inherently temporal nature of auditory stimuli has also led to interesting insights into the temporal dynamics of auditory attention. The purpose of this workshop is to bring together experimentalists and theoreticians working in auditory and visual attention for a vibrant discussion of current research. We anticipate that this will encourage an exciting and valuable exchange of ideas, new insights and synthesis, and sharing of perspectives on how best to advance our understanding of the biological basis of attention.
Program
Sunday, 20 April 2008
Afternoon Arrival at Robertson House, Banbury Center, for registration and room
Assignment
6:00 pm
Reception at Robertson House
7:30 pm
Dinner at Robertson House
Monday, 21 April
7:15-8:15 am
Breakfast at Robertson House
8:30-8:35 am
Jan A. Witkowski, Banbury Center, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold
Spring Harbor, New York: Introductory remarks.
8:35-8:45 am
John H. Reynolds, The Salk Institute For Biological Studies, La Jolla,
California and Jonathan B. Fritz, University of Maryland, College Park: Introductory remarks.
8:45-11:45 am
SESSION 1: Experimental and Theoretical perspectives on Attention
Chair: Robert Desimone, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge
8:45-9:05 am
Ken Nakayama, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Perception, cognition and action.
9:05-9:15 am
Discussion
9:15-9:35 am
Steven A. Hillyard, University of California San Diego, La Jolla: Attention facilitates multiple features in parallel in human visual cortex.
9:35-9:45 am
Discussion
9:45-10:05 am
John Duncan, MRC Cognition & Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge, United
Kingdom: Selective behavior and selective attention in the human and monkey brain.
10:05-10:15 am
Discussion
10:15-10:45 am
Break
10:45-11:05 am
Robert H. Wurtz, National Eye Institute, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland: Visual gateway to cortex and its guardian attention in the LGN and TRN.
11:05-11:15 am
Discussion
11:15-11:35 am
Marisa Carrasco, New York University, New York: Effects of spatial and feature-based attention: Psychophysical and neuroimaging studies.
11:35-11:45 am
Discussion
12:00 pm
Luncheon at Robertson House
1:30-2:30 pm
SESSION 1: Experimental and Theoretical perspectives on Attention (Cont’d.)
Chair: Laurent Itti, University of Southern California, Los Angeles
1:30-1:50 pm
Laurence F. Abbott, Columbia University, New York: Gating of multiple signals through attentional modulation.
1:50-2:00 pm
Discussion
2:00-2:20 pm
David Heeger, New York University, New York: The normalization model of attention.
2:20-2:30 pm
Discussion
2:30-6:00 pm
SESSION 2: Auditory Attention: Human
Chair: Shihab A. Shamma, University of Maryland, College Park
2:30-2:50 pm
Robert J. Zatorre, McGill University, Montreal, Canada: Functional organization of human auditory cortex: Bottom-up features and topdown processes.
2:50-3:00 pm
Discussion
3:00-3:20 pm
Ervin Hafter, University of California, Berkeley: A role for memory in shared attention.
3:20-3:30 pm
Discussion
3:30-3:50 pm
Robert Carlyon, MRC Cognition & Brain Sciences, Cambridge, United
Kingdom: Effects of attention on auditory scene analysis.
3:50-4:00 pm
Discussion
3/6 4:00-4:30 pm
Break
4:30-4:50 pm
Barbara Shinn-Cunningham, Boston University, Massachusetts: The costs of switching auditory attention.
4:50-5:00 pm
Discussion
5:00-5:20 pm
Claude Alain, Rotman Research Institute of Baycrest Centre, Ontario, Canada: Top-down influences on memory and response-related activity for sound
location (dual pathways, parietal cortex and spatial memory).
5:20-5:30 pm
Discussion
5:30-6:00 pm
General Discussion
6:15 pm
Reception at Robertson House
7:00 pm
Dinner at Robertson House
Tuesday, 22 April
7:15-8:15 am
Breakfast at Robertson House
9:00-11:00 am
SESSION 3: Visual Attention I: Theory and Experiment
Chair: Robert H. Wurtz, National Eye Institute, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland
9:00-9:20 am
Stefan Treue, German Primate Center, Goettingen, Germany: Spatial, feature, and object based attention in area MT.
9:20-9:30 am
Discussion
9:30-9:50 am
Laurent Itti, University of Southern California, Los Angeles: Quantifying bottom-up and top-down influences on gaze allocation in humans and monkeys.
9:50-10:00 am
Discussion
10:00-10:20 am
Leonardo Chelazzi, University of Verona Medical School, Italy: Mechanisms of feature-selective attention in area V4 of the macaque (taskrelevance of responses in V4).
10:20-10:30 am
Discussion
10:30-11:00 am
Break
11:00-12:30 pm
SESSION 4: Auditory Attention I: Neurophysiology of Auditory Attention
Chair: Robert Carlyon, MRC Cognition & Brain Sciences, Cambridge, United
Kingdom
11:00-11:20 am
Tony Zador, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, New York: Two components of attentional modulation in rat auditory cortex.
11:20-11:30 am
Discussion
11:30-11:50 am
Shihab A. Shamma, University of Maryland, College Park: Attention and rapid plasticity in auditory cortex.
11:50-12:00 pm
Discussion
12:00-12:20 pm
Jonathan B. Fritz, University of Maryland, College Park: What is the contribution of frontal cortex to an auditory attentional network?
12:20-12:30 pm
Discussion
12:45 pm
Luncheon at Robertson House
2:00-4:00 pm
SESSION 5: Visual Attention II
Chair: Ken Nakayama, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
2:00-2:20 pm
Wilson S. Geisler, University of Texas at Austin: Mechanisms of fixation selection evaluated using ideal observer analysis.
2:20-2:30 pm
Discussion
2:30-2:50 pm
Julio C. Martinez Trujillo, McGill University, Montreal, Canada: Attentional modulation of sensory inputs at the level of single neurons in MT.
2:50-3:00 pm
Discussion
3:00-3:20 pm
Patrick Cavanagh, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Object-based integration and moving attention.
3:20-3:30 pm
Discussion
3:30-4:00 pm
Break
4:00-6:00 pm
SESSION 6: Cell Type Specificity
Chair: Leonardo Chelazzi, University of Verona Medical School, Italy
4:00-4:20 pm
John H. Reynolds, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla,
California: Mapping the microcircuitry of attention.
4:20-4:30 pm
Discussion
4:30-4:50 pm
Jude Mitchell, The Salk Institute, San Diego, California: Attention-dependent response modulation varies between cell classes in macaque V4.
4:50-5:00 pm
Discussion
5:00-5:20 pm
Xiao-Jing Wang, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut: Stochastic and synchronous neural circuit dynamics underlying attentional gain
modulation.
5:20-5:30 pm
Discussion
5:30-6:00 pm
General Discussion
6:15 pm
Reception at Robertson House
7:00 pm
Dinner at Robertson House
Wednesday, 23 April
7:15-8:15 am
Breakfast at Robertson House
8:30-10:30 am
SESSION 7: Visual Attention III: Attentional Control
Chair: John Duncan, MRC Cognition & Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge,
United Kingdom
8:30-8:50 am
Jacqueline Gottlieb, Columbia University, New York: Attention, motor planning and decisions: the perspective from the parietal cortex.
8:50-9:00 am
Discussion
9:00-9:20 am
Surya Ganguli, University of California, San Francisco: 1-dim dynamics of attention and decision making in LIP.
9:20-9:30 am
Discussion
9:30-9:50 am
James Mazer, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut: Cortical representations of attention and salience.
9:50-10:00 am
Discussion
10:00-10:30 am
Break
10:30-12:40 pm
SESSION 8: Synchrony and Attention
Chair: Stefan Treue, German Primate Center, Goettingen, Germany
10:30-10:50 am
Robert Desimone, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge: Neural synchrony and selective attention.
10:50-11:00 am
Discussion
11:00-11:20 am
Ernst Niebur, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland: Synchrony and the attentional state.
11:20-11:30 am
Discussion
11:30-11:50 am
Paul Tiesinga, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: The role of interneuron diversity in the cortical circuit for attention.
11:50-12:00 pm
Discussion
12:00-12:30 pm
General Discussion
12:30 pm
Jerome Swartz, The Swartz Foundation, East Setauket, New York: Closing Remarks
12:45 pm
Luncheon at Robertson House
Afternoon departure
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