Dr. Zenon Pylyshyn
Center for Cognitive Science[Note: replace " at " with "@" -- this is to frustrate spammers who get their email addresses by automatic web-page scanning]
Brief 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
* Undergraduate Research
Internship Program in this
laboratory. For
more information click Here
* What's this work about?
For more information
click Here
* To view some neat demos of
our experiments, click
Here
* Laboratory Web Site click on
Visual
Attention Lab
* For a short description of
the Multiple Object Tracking
experiments click
on:
Zenon
Pylyshyn (2007) Multiple Object Tracking. Scholarpedia,
2(10):3326.
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)
Poster
for
Pylyshyn,
Z. W. (2009). Perception,
Representation and the World: The FINST that binds.
In D. Dedrick
& L. M. Trick
(Eds.), Computation, Cognition
and Pylyshyn.
The empirical case for bare demonstratives in vision. In R.J. Stainton, C. Viger (Eds.) Compositionality, Context and Semantic Values: Essays in Honour of Ernie Lepore, Springer (2008).
(With
(With H. Haladjian, C. King & J.Reilly) Selective nontarget inhibition in Multiple Object Tracking (MOT). Visual Cognition, 16(8), 1011-1021
(With
D. Dulin,
Y. Hatwell,
and
Imagery.
In
Gregory, Richard.
(With V Annan) Dynamics of Target Selection in Multiple Object Tracking (MOT) (Spatial Vision, 19(6), 485-504)
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).
(With
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 &
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.
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.
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.
(with R. Storm) Tracking multiple independent targets: evidence for a parallel tracking mechanism. Spatial Vision, 1988, 3(3), 1-19. (formulae under construction)
Rules
and
Representations: Chomsky and Representational Realism.
In A. Kashir
(Ed.), The
Chomskian
Turn.
Connectionism and Cognitive Architecture (with J. Fodor) Cognition, 1988, 28, 3-71
How direct is visual perception? Some reflections in Gibson's `Ecological Approach' (with J. Fodor) Cognition, 1981, 9, 139-196
_____
Information for Class Use _____
Books
**
Seeing and
Visualizing: It's not what you think
is available at:
Seeing and
Visualizing
(Amazon) or at Barnes
& Noble
Articles
What
is Cognitive Science: PowerPoint
slides of Lecture
(If that does not work, try the html version) Lecture
Slides
in html form
Lecture
Outline
Readings:
What's
in your mind? (revised
version)
Do
we
think in images?
(html)
or click
here for the PDF version
Additional
Manuscript of MIT Press book "Things
and Places: How the mind connects with the world"
____________________________________________
16:730:675 Seminar in Philosophy of Mind (Phil department listing)
16:185:600 Philosophy of mind (Cognitive Science Listing)
Readings can be found at:
Readings for the Fodor/Pylyshyn course (including paper by Joe Levine)