PSYC 739-301
probabilistic models of perception and cognition
spring 2012
time: monday and wednesday, 2-3.30p
room: 326C, 3401 walnut
instructor: alan stocker
brief description
our world is a noisy world and thus, our premises and conceptions of physical reality remain subject to doubt. how do we perceive and reason in face of such uncertainty? this graduate seminar will provide a careful introduction to probability theory and the various ways it has been applied to model human perceptual and cognitive behavior.
relevant books
- e.t. janes, "Probability Theory - The Logic of Science", 2003, cambridge university press. the original book manuscript is available here. this version is almost identical to the 2003 printed edition.
- david mackay, "Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms", 2003, cambridge university press. the book can be downloaded in full here.
- judea pearl,"Causality", 2nd edition 2009, cambridge university press.
- christopher bishop,"Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning", 2006, springer.
schedule/handouts/reading and homework assignments
... will be continually updated as the semester progresses.
| date | topic | handouts | assignments |
| jan 16 | no class - MLK day | ||
| jan 18 | lec: intro | ||
| jan 23 | lec: probability theory | slides 1 exercise 1 |
hansen intro (pdf) |
| jan 25 | lec: probabilty theory cont. | ||
| jan 30 | lec: hypothesis testing dis:exercise 1 |
slides 2 |
read article Bem2011 (pdf) hand in exercise 1 |
| feb 01 | lec/dis: hypothesis testing cont. | exercise 2 macKay chap.3 (pdf) |
read Wagenmakers_etal2011 (pdf) and Rouder_etal2011 (pdf) |
| feb 06 | lec: signal detection theory | slides 3 heeger (pdf) MATLAB demo (.m) |
hand in exercise 2 |
| feb 08 | lec: 2AFC | exercise 3 | |
| feb 13 | lec: bayesian 2AFC model | slides 4 | read stocker/simoncelli2006 (link) and section one of simoncelli 2009 (link) hand in exercise 3 |
| feb 15 | lec/dis: bayesian 2AFC model | exercise 4 | |
| feb 20 | lec: cue-integration | slides 5 | read ernst/banks 2002 (pdf) hand in exercise 4 |
| feb 22 | lec/dis: cue-integration cont. | slides 6 exercise 5 data file (.mat) |
|
| feb 27 | lec: hierarchical models | slides | read koerding et al. 2007 (link) |
| feb 29 | lec: graph theory | slides | read bishop chap. 8 (pdf) hand in exercise 5 |
| mar 12 | pres: project papers | ||
| mar 19 | pres: project papers | ||
| mar 21 | lec: causal models | slides | |
| mar 26 | lec: neural instantiations | read part 2 of simoncelli 2009 (link) and jazayeri/movshon 2006 (link) |
|
| mar 28 | lec: neural instantiations cont. | read ma/beck/latham/pouget 2006 (link) and ganguli/simoncelli 2011 (link) |
|
| apr 2 | individual project discussions | ||
| apr 4 | individual project discussions | ||
| apr 9 | lec: inference over time 1 HMMs |
slides | |
| apr 11 | lec: inference over time 2 adaptation |
slides | read stocker/simoncelli 2006 (link) and chopin/mamassian 2012 (link) |
| apr 16 | lec: inference over time 3 conditional perception |
read jazayeri/movshon 2007 (pdf) and stocker/simoncelli 2008 (link) |
apr 18 | PROJECT PRESENTATIONS A |
| apr 23 | PROJECT PRESENTATIONS B and final discussion |