Description of event for April 5, 2012 – an initiative of Prof. Dr. Tandra Ghose
Wahrnehmung - A Public Outreach Event
Event:
The goal of this event is to raise awareness about the nature of visual perception amongst the
residents of the city of Kaiserslautern. Leading scientists from five different countries will
introduce interested listeners to the fascinating workings of the human mind and brain during the
seemingly automatic process of “seeing”.
Time:
Thursday, April 5 from 16:00 to 19:30
Where:
Fraunhofer Zentrum at the Trippstadter Straße, Kaiserslautern
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Tandra Ghose < [email protected] >
Language:
All presentations will be in English
Website:
http://www.sowi.uni-kl.de/wcms/events.html
Acknowledgements:


A special thanks to Prof. Dr. Neunzert, Fraunhofer Institute (Kaiserslautern) for his help in
organizing this event.
Funding for this event is provided by EU’s Marie Curie Career Integration grant (P#293901)
awarded to Prof. Dr. Tandra Ghose, University of Kaiserslautern.
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Description of event for April 5, 2012 – an initiative of Prof. Dr. Tandra Ghose
Schedule:
Time
Talk
16:00 to 16:05
Welcome by the President of University of Kaiserslautern
16:05 to 16:10
Introduction by Prof. Dr. Tandra Ghose (University of Kaiserslautern)
16:10 to 16:25
“Visual Illusions” by Prof. Dr. Rob Van Lier (Netherlands)
16:25 to 16:40
“Seeing Behind” by Prof. Dr. Walter Gerbino (Italy)
16:40 to 16:55
“There's More to Vision than Meets the Eye” by Prof. Dr. Mary Peterson
(USA)
17:00 to 17:15
“Gestalts and Part-Whole Relationships in Vision” by Prof. Dr. Johan
Wagemans (Belgium)
17:15 to 17:30
“Perception and Consciousness ” by Prof. Dr. Michael Herzog (Switzerland)
17:30 to 17:40
BREAK
17:40 to 18:30
“Color, Music, and Emotions” by Prof. Dr. Stephen Palmer (USA)
18:30 – 19:15
Time for discussions with Brezel und Wein.
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Description of event for April 5, 2012 – an initiative of Prof. Dr. Tandra Ghose
Wahrnehmung (Perception):
Most people believe that because seeing seems “effortless” for them there should be no question
of potential scientific interest in this general area. After attending this series of talks, the
audience will better appreciate the scientific principles underlying the simple act of “seeing” and
how psychologists use vision as a window to understand the processes underlying the
functioning of the human brain, mind and even consciousness. For example,
In this picture most of us will see some
kind of motion even though nothing in it
is actually moving. This is an example
of a visual illusion.
The first two talks will demonstrate
visual illusions indicating that people do
not necessarily see what is really out
there in the world. Rather, visual
perception results from a complex
interaction between information from
the external world and processes
occurring in the human brain.
In a way we will focus on what happens
“behind the scenes” for the surprisingly
complex processes that allow people to
“see”.
In the third talk, the speaker will tell us
how brain damage can affect visual
perception.
For example, this picture shows the
“perceived” world of a patient who
claimed to see half of his world in color
and half in black & white… how is
such perception even possible?
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Description of event for April 5, 2012 – an initiative of Prof. Dr. Tandra Ghose
This picture looks different when seen
from near and far.
One of the speakers in this event will
demonstrate how the whole (the Gestalt)
is different from the sum of its parts and
what such processing tells us about the
human brain.
Painting by Octavio Ocampo
It is often claimed that our
conscious mind is like the tip of an
iceberg with the unconscious mind
being similar to the immense
submerged portion of the iceberg
that remains hidden below the
water’s surface.
One of the speakers will illustrate
how visual perception can be used
to understand more about the
relationship between conscious
and unconscious mind.
In the final talk the speaker will discuss
how the visual perception of color is
related to the auditory perception of music
and through the emotional associations
they have in common.
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Description of event for April 5, 2012 – an initiative of Prof. Dr. Tandra Ghose
About the speakers:
Every speaker is an eminent scientist in the field of visual perception, a principal investigator of
a world-class laboratory, an author of numerous highly cited research articles that have
revolutionized this area of research, a recipient of coveted research awards and honors, a Fellow
of prestigious societies and an editor of journals with high impact factors.
Prof. Dr. Rob Van Lier (Netherlands)
- Discoverer of illusions such as “Filling in the Afterimage after the Image “,”Catching
Patches”, “Spot the morphing face” that were finalists in the World’s Best Visual Illusion
contest in 2005, 2006, 2008 and 2011. He is the winner of the first prize in this contest in
2008.
- Professor in Cognitive Psychology at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and
Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen.
- World renowned researcher on perceptual organization of color, lightness and form
including, special populations, such as infants, autistic individuals and the visually
disabled.
Prof. Dr. Walter Gerbino (Italy)
- Professor of Psychology at the University of Trieste.
- World renowned researcher on various aspects of perceptual organization including
phenomenal transparency, form completion and apparent motion.
- Developed a model of interpolation that account for normal and anomalous trajectories of
contours perceived behind occluders.
Prof. Dr. Mary Peterson (USA)
- Director of the Cognitive Science Program and Professor of Psychology at the University
of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona, USA.
- World renowned researcher on the complex processes involved in visual perception of
objects, faces and scenes using behavioral, psychophysiological, and imaging methods in
normal and brain-damaged individuals.
- Chair of the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Cognitive Science and serves on the
Executive Committee of the School of Mind, Brain and Behavior at the University of
Arizona (UA).
- Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Fellow of the
Association for Psychological Science, and a Fellow of the American Psychological
Association.
- An elected Member of the Society of Experimental Psychologists and the International
Neuropsychological Symposium.
- Member of the Advisory Board the Women in Cognitive Science Society.
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Description of event for April 5, 2012 – an initiative of Prof. Dr. Tandra Ghose
Prof. Dr. Johan Wagemans (Belgium)
- Professor and Head of the Laboratory of Experimental Psychology at the KU Leuven
- Recipient of the prestigious Methusalem grant awarded by the Flemish Government for
research on visual perception.
- World renowned researcher on perceptual organization in the context of dynamical and
hierarchical visual brain.
- He is responsible for a group of about 25 researchers studying basic problems in these
areas, combining psychophysics, modeling and neuroimaging, as well as applications in
art and autism.
Prof. Dr. Michael Herzog (Switzerland)
- Professor of psychophysics at the Brain Mind Institute (BMI) at the EPFL in Lausanne
- Born and educated in Germany (University of Erlangen, University of Tübingen)
- World renowned researcher who investigates visual perception with psychophysics and
brain imaging.
- Theorist about the insufficiency of current models for explaining consciousness.
Prof. Dr. Stephen Palmer (USA)
- Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science at UC Berkeley.
- Former Director of Institute of Cognitive Studies, U.C. Berkeley
- Author of Vision Science: Photons to Phenomenology, the book that revolutionized how
visual perception is taught to undergraduate and graduate students in cognitive science,
psychology, and optometry all around the world, with more than1600 citations on Google
Scholar.
- Photographer (online gallery http://www.palmer-photoart.com ) whose style is deeply
rooted in his interests in visual perception and the structure of light.
- World renowned researcher on visual aesthetics of color and spatial composition.
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Description of event for April 5, 2012 – an initiative of Prof. Dr. Tandra Ghose
ABSTRACTS
Title: Illusory Vision
Speaker: Prof. Dr. Rob Van Lier (Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands)
Abstract: The visual world is a creation of our brain. Everything we see in fact belongs to the
output of the visual process. Starting with meaningless patches of light on our retinae, the visual
system rapidly transforms the incoming information into the world we all know so well. Every
second our eyes are open the "mental canvas" is bombarded with colors and forms; a game of
light that seems to be played by a hidden artist. Can we unravel all mysterious and secretive
tricks that enable vision? There is still a long, exciting way to go. On that scientific journey,
visual illusions provide a perfect entrance to unravel the mechanisms of the visual brain and,
with that, the real identity of the unknown artist. In this presentation a few steps are taken by
showing how color and form may interact with each other and shape our daily illusory vision.
Title: Seeing Behind
Speaker: Prof. Dr. Walter Gerbino (University of Trieste, Italy)
Abstract: Visual perception utilizes fragmentary evidence available in optic images to build up a
phenomenal world made of complete objects. We amodally perceive hidden parts of semioccluded surfaces and volumes. The specific shape and extent of such amodal completions tell us
a lot about perceptual processes concealed from direct awareness. Seeing behind reveals what is
behind seeing. Amodal completions contradict logical expectations, are more consistent with
local than global constraints, and sometimes distort potentially regular patterns.
Title: There's More to Vision Than Meets the Eye
Speaker: Prof. Dr. Mary Peterson (University of Arizona, Tucson, USA)
Abstract: In order to understand vision, one must study the brain as well as the eyes. Brain
damage, caused by strokes, accident, or disease, can cause significant problems with visual
perception and attention. For instance, problems with perceiving and imagining spaces result
from damage to some parts of the brain. Impairments in object and face perception result from
damage to other parts of the brain. When conscious perception is impaired, unconscious
perception is sometimes intact. Examples of how brain damage affects visual perception reveal
that there's more to vision than meets the eye.
Title: Gestalts and Part-Whole Relationships in Vision
Speaker: Prof. Dr. Johan Wagemans (University of Leuven, Belgium)
Abstract: In 1912 Wertheimer launched Gestalt psychology, arguing that the whole is different
from the sum of the parts. Wholes were considered primary in perceptual experience, even
determining what the parts are. Here, I will illustrate some of the phenomena supporting this
Gestalt claim. In addition, I will also emphasize how these phenomena continue to challenge the
mainstream theories about visual processing in the brain, in terms of a hierarchy of processing
layers from low-level features to integrated object representations at the higher level. A century
later, we have research techniques available that the Gestaltists did not have at their disposal and
we can now attempt a new synthesis.
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Description of event for April 5, 2012 – an initiative of Prof. Dr. Tandra Ghose
Title: Perception and Consciousness
Speaker: Prof. Dr. Michael Herzog (EPFL, Switzerland)
Abstract: Consciousness seems to be an elusive topic and its nature is hotly debated by
philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists. However, contrary to common belief,
consciousness can easily be studied by a variety of paradigms. I will show with a binocular
rivalry paradigm, where highly different images are shown to the two eyes, how conscious
information can be rendered unconscious and unconscious information conscious. What happens
with information that is rendered unconscious? I will review experiments showing that we can
perform many tasks, such reading and basic mathematics, without consciousness.
Title: Color, Music, and Emotion
Speaker: Prof. Dr. Stephen Palmer (UC Berkeley, USA)
Abstract: Arnheim (1986) once speculated that different aesthetic domains (e.g., color and
music) might be related to each other through common emotional associations. We investigated
this hypothesis by having participants pick from among an array of 37 colors the colors that went
best (and later the colors that went worst) with each of a set of 18 brief samples of classical
orchestral music that varied in composer (Bach/Mozart/Brahms), tempo (slow/medium/fast), and
mode (major/minor). They also rated each musical selection and each color for its emotional
associations (happy-sad, lively-dreary, strong-weak, angry-calm). Systematic mappings were
found between the dimensions of color and music: faster music and major mode were associated
with lighter, more saturated, yellower colors, whereas slower music and minor mode were
associated with darker, desaturated, bluer colors. More precisely controlled musical stimuli
(single-line melodies by Mozart on a synthesized piano) produced more refined relations
between the music and the colors chosen to go with them. These color-music mappings are
mediated by common emotional associations, because the correlation between emotional ratings
of the musical selections and emotional ratings of the colors chosen to go with them were
extremely high (.90 to .98) for all emotional dimensions studied (e.g., people picked happy
colors to go with happy music and dreary colors to go with dreary music). The mediating role of
emotion was established by obtaining analogous effects when people picked the colors that went
best (and worst) with faces and body poses that expressed emotions (happy-sad and angry-calm).
Similarly high correlations were obtained when the emotional ratings of the faces/gestures were
compared with corresponding emotional ratings of the colors chosen to go with them. Further
findings identify a stable aesthetic difference between people in terms of their level of
"preference for harmony" across the domains of color combinations, musical compositions,
shape preferences, and spatial composition within a rectangular frame.
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