Dr. Zenon Pylyshyn
Center for Cognitive ScienceBrief biography for Professor Pylyshyn
Cognitive Science Society Presidential Address Spring and Fall Fashions in Cognitive Science!
If you are browsing at this site you may also be interested in a talk I recently dug out. As president of the Cognitive Science Society in 1986 I was asked to inaugurate the tradition of after dinner Presidential Addresses. The talk I gave was partly a serious plea for a certain view of the field of Cognitive Science I felt had led to the creating of the Society, and partly it was stand-up comedy, aided by a variety of cartoons purloined from the New Yorker and from Gary Larsen. Since that time I keep running into people at parties who remember me, not for the brilliant research I have done, but for the talk. I have even had people perform some of it better that I could have done!
If you are interested in the talk you can access it here, but
I would urge
you to click on the cartoons and other visual aids only after they have
been
introduced in the talk.
Click here for the talk Spring
and Fashions in Cognitive Science.
Research
New *
Undergraduate Research Internship Program in this laboratory. For more information click Here
New
* What's this work about? For
more
information click Here
New
* To view some neat demos of our experiments, click Here
New * Laboratory Web Site click on Visual Attention Lab
New * Laboratory Web Site click on Visual Attention Lab
New
* For a short description of the Multiple Object Tracking experiments click on:
Zenon Pylyshyn (2007) Multiple Object Tracking. Scholarpedia, p.23977.
Dr. Pylyshyn's research interests are in:
1) Visual attention and Preattention
The visual system does some things in parallel and some things serially. Not only does the eye move in rapid saccades several times each second, but attention also moves independent of any eye movements (so-called "covert attention scanning"). But a serial process which scans a display requires a mechanism to keep track of which things it has already visited and which things it should scan to. A number of people have referred to this process of keeping track of objects as "marking", but the marking metaphor is misleading because it suggests that we have a "picture" or some other display somewhere in our heads where we can place a marker. Since there are many reasons to refrain from hypothesizing such a pictorial display in the head, we have over the past decade developed an alternative view of how places in the visual field are "marked" or, to use our terminology, they are “FINSTed”.
The theory of indexing has motivated most of our experimental research over the past 8 years and has led to the exploration of a number of new phenomena (e.g. the ability to track several identical visual targets which move independently in random motion, weaving in and out among identical non-targets; the ability to visually separate a subset of items from others by brief location markers), and we have provided an new account of known phenomena, such as many of those arising from studies of "mental imagery" especially when they are superimposed onto visual percepts, of "subitizing" and of the visual stability of our percepts despite eye-movements. The theory has been described in (Pylyshyn, 1989) and a brief summary of the findings have been reported in (Pylyshyn, 1994). For more on the FINST Visual Index theory and demos of the Multiple Object Tracking paradigm click The Visual Index Theory.
For a quicktime movie
demo of
Multiple Object Tracking (with occluders) M.O.T.
DEMO!
* {You need the Apple Quicktime Plugin to view this demo. If you don't
have one
you can get it free by clicking Download
Quicktime}
2) Application of Visual Index Theory to saccadic integration. See lab notes at Chris Currie's ongoing FINSTs and eye movement research report.
3) Studies of Mental Imagery
A number of studies were done some years ago in our laboratory showing that many of the phenomena of mental imagery are a result of subjects' understanding of the imagery task and their tacit knowledge of what happens in real perceptual circumstances (Pylyshyn, 1981). We are now continuing these studies in order to show that the visual system is not involved in mental imagery and, in fact, that "imagery", in the pictorial sense in which it is understood by many psychologists, is not involved in vision either. (see below for recent references)
4) Applied Research
Applications of spatial indexing theory in the design of interfaces to computers and to communications systems such as involved in teleconferencing and telelearning. This is based on the observation that space and 3D spatial location plays an important role in individuating ideas and in communicating complex ideas. Gestures and pointing (as well as indicating by other means such as acoustically) in order to keep track of separate ideas and relationships is common and aids communication. multimodal communication, including gestures, can help widen the psychological communication bandwidth.
5) Theoretical Research
Behind the research on attention, on mental imagery, and on the interaction of vision and cognition, lies a long standing interest in the nature of what is called the "cognitive architecture" of the human cognitive computer (Pylyshyn, 1991). Consequently another line of research has been on theoretical analyses of claims about architectures, whether they are so-called "connectionist" or "analogue" or symbolic. This also brings the empirical research into contact with hypotheses concerning the decomposibility of the cognitive system or its "modularity". Much of our research bears on the question of whether vision or imagery processes are sensitive to knowledge_i.e. whether they are "cognitively penetrable". The connection of the research to issues of cognitive architecture is described in detail in my books (Pylyshyn, 1984; 2003).
References:
Pylyshyn, Z.W.
(1994). Some
primitive mechanisms of spatial attention. Cognition,
50, 363-384.
Pylyshyn, Z.W. (1991). The role of cognitive architecture in theories
of
cognition. In K. VanLehn (Ed.), Architectures for Intelligence.
Hillsdale:
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc.
Pylyshyn, Z.W. (1989). The role of location indexes in spatial
perception: A
sketch of the FINST spatial-index model. Cognition,
32, 65-97.
Pylyshyn, Z.W. (1984). Computation and Cognition: Towards a
Foundation for
Cognitive Science. MIT Press
Pylyshyn, Z.W. (1981). The imagery debate: Analogue media versus tacit
knowledge. Psychological Review, 88, 16-45.
Papers by Z. Pylyshyn available
for downloading
* (The preferred format for downloading is PDF. If you would like a free PDF reader click here: Download PDF reader)
PUBLICATIONS (and PREPUBLICATIONS) *For actual reprints email the author
Imagery. In Gregory, Richard. Oxford Companion to the Mind (Second Edition, 2006) Oxford University Press
(With Franconeri, Lin, Fisher & Enns) Evidence against a speed limit in multiple Object Tracking) in press, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review,
(With V Annan) Dynamics of Target Selection in Multiple Object Tracking (MOT) (Spatial Vision, 19(6), 485-504)
(With C King & J.Reilly) Selective nontarget inhibition in Multiple Object Tracking (MOT) (under review -- please do not cite without permission)
Some puzzling findings in multiple object tracking (MOT): I. Tracking without keeping track of object identities Visual Cognition, 2004, 11(7), 801-822
Some puzzling findings in multiple object tracking (MOT): II. Inhibition of moving nontargets Visual Cognition, 2006, 14(2), 175-198
(With Brian Keane) Is motion extrapolation employed in multiple object tracking? Tracking as a low-level, non-predictive function Cognitive Psychology , 2006, 52(4), 346-368
Return of the mental image: Are there really pictures in the head? Trends in Cognitive Science, 2003, 7(3), 113-118
Mental Imagery: In search of a theory
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2002, 25(2), 157-237
(html version)
or click here
for
the long PDF version of the full reprint (including commentaries).
Is the "imagery debate" over? If so, what was it about? Cognition: a critical look. Advances, questions and controversies in honor of J. Mehler. E. Dupoux (Ed). Cambridge, MA, MIT Press. (or click here for the PDF version)
(With E. Blaser and A.O. Holcombe) Tracking an Object Through Feature Space, Nature, 2000, 408(Nov 9), 196-199 [PDF]
Visual Indexes, Preconceptual Objects, and Situated Vision Cognition, 2001, 80 (1/2) (PDF file).
(With B. Scholl & J. Feldman) What is a visual object: Evidence from target-merging in multiple-object tracking Cognition, 80 (1/2) 159-177 (PDF file).
(With B. Scholl & S. Franconeri) The relationship between property-encoding and object-based attention: Evidence from multiple-object tracking. (Unpublished: If you would like a copy of the manuscript, write to one of the authors).
Situating vision in the world Trends in Cognitive Science, 4(5), May 2000, pp 197-207 (PDF File)
Is vision
continuous with cognition? The case for Cognitive impenetrability of
visual perception. [pdf file] In Behavioral and
Brain
Sciences, Vol 22, No 3, Jan 1999, p341-423 or Abstract Only (ascii), or
in html
or click
here
for the long reprint file of the entire article (including commentaries)
(with C.R. Sears) Multiple object tracking and Attentional Processing. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology. 2000, 54(1), 1-14 [PDF file]
(with B. Scholl) Tracking multiple items through occlusion: Clues to visual objecthood. Cognitive Psychology, 1999, 38(2), 259-290. [PDF file]
The role of Visual Indexes in Spatial Vision and Imagery. In R. Wright, Visual Attention. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. [PDF File]
What's in Your Mind?. In: E. Lepore & Z. Pylyshyn (Eds), What is Cognitive Science? [PDF File]
(with J.A. Burkell) Searching through subsets: A test of the visual indexing hypothesis. Spatial Vision, 1997, 11(2), 225-258.
Computing in Cognitive Science. In Posner, M. Foundations of Cognitive Science. Cambridge: MIT Press (A Bradford Book), 1989.
Computers and the Symbolization of Knowledge. In Morelli, Anselmi, Brown, Haberlandt & Lloyd (Eds.) Minds, Brains and Computers: Perspectives in Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence. Ablex, 1993)
(with Burkell, Fisher, Sears, Schmidt & Trick) Multiple parallel access in visual attention.. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1994, 48(2), 260-283.
Primitive Mechanisms of Spatial Attention.. Cognition, 1994, 50, 363-384.
The role of location indexes in spatial perception: A sketch of the FINST spatial-index model.Cognition, 1989, 32, 65-97.
Tracking multiple independent targets: evidence for a parallel tracking mechanism. Spatial Vision, 1988, 3(3), 1-19.
Rules and Representations: Chomsky and Representational Realism. In A. Kashir (Ed.), The Chomskian Turn. Oxford:Basic Blackwell, 1991.
Connectionism and
Cognitive Architecture (with J. Fodor)
How
direct is visual perception? Some reflections in Gibson's `Ecological
Approach' (with J. Fodor)
Abstracts of Posters/Talks submitted by members of the Visual Attention Lab at Vision Sciences Conferences
Abstracts for Vision Sciences 2005
Abstracts for Vision Sciences 2004
Abstracts for Vision Sciences 2003
Abstracts for Vision Sciences 2002
Check out >Seeing and Visualizing: It's not what you think Available at
Seeing and
Visualizing Or the
Paperback Edition
Or check out the description in GoogleBooks
The following are based on Powerpoint presentations and require
Explorer 5.0 or
higher
_____ Information for Class Use _____
Cognitive Science 201:
PowerPoint slides of
Lecture (1/20/04)
(If that does not work,
try the html version)
Lecture Slides in html form
Lecture Outline
Readings:
What's in your mind? (revised version)
Readings
for course "The
medium of thought"
Fall 2001 -- course description in Course
Cog Sci: 16:185:600
Do we
think in images?
(html) or click
here for the PDF
version
Additional
Readings for course "
Objects and Places"
Manuscript of a forthcoming MIT Press book "Things and Places:
How the mind connects with the world"
Course description in Course
Cog Sci: 16:185:600
Do we
think in images?
(html) or click
here for the PDF
version