Course overview
- Course codeFTME010
- ECTS credits7.5
- DepartmentMECHANICS AND MARITIME SCIENCES
- Graduate schoolMachine and Vehicle Systems
- Starts2017-05-02
- PeriodicityOdd years, March
- LanguageEnglish
- Nordic Five Tech (N5T)The course is free of charge for PhD students from N5T Universities.
- ApplicationContact the course coordinator
Course coordinator
- Robert Thomson
- Professor, Vehicle Safety, Mechanics and Maritime Sciences
About the course
Goal
In-depth knowledge of attention and vision.
Content
Attention and vision are key processes for human behavior. For example, the damaging effects of inattention or momentary loss of vision on everyday action tasks such as driving are enormous. This course aims at providing an in-depth understanding of the latest theories in attention and vision, with a specific emphasis on how attention and vision are used while performing actions.
There is, historically speaking, an enormous amount of literature and theories regarding attention, and yet it remains a notoriously slippery concept. In spite of conflicting theories and negative viewpoints throughout the years, attention is now one of the central topics of modern neuroscience research thanks to the availability of new experimental techniques. As we shall see, these new techniques have recently led to far clearer understanding of attention.
It is extremely difficult to study attention without confounding it with other issues of perceptual, motor, or central processing. In this course, we will focus on studying attention as accompanied by vision, laying a modern foundation for understanding vision and its special relationship with attention.
Prerequisites
Admitted to a graduate program
Type of course
Lectures and seminars.
Examination
Participants will read the specified literature and submit at least 3 discussion questions per class which will be used for discussion in class. The course will finish with a written case study analysis of inattention in an applied setting, for example inattention in driving. Examination will be based on assessment of the submitted discussion questions, in-class activity, and the written case study analysis.
Seminars
In-depth knowledge of attention and vision.
Content
Attention and vision are key processes for human behavior. For example, the damaging effects of inattention or momentary loss of vision on everyday action tasks such as driving are enormous. This course aims at providing an in-depth understanding of the latest theories in attention and vision, with a specific emphasis on how attention and vision are used while performing actions.
There is, historically speaking, an enormous amount of literature and theories regarding attention, and yet it remains a notoriously slippery concept. In spite of conflicting theories and negative viewpoints throughout the years, attention is now one of the central topics of modern neuroscience research thanks to the availability of new experimental techniques. As we shall see, these new techniques have recently led to far clearer understanding of attention.
It is extremely difficult to study attention without confounding it with other issues of perceptual, motor, or central processing. In this course, we will focus on studying attention as accompanied by vision, laying a modern foundation for understanding vision and its special relationship with attention.
Prerequisites
Admitted to a graduate program
Type of course
Lectures and seminars.
Examination
Participants will read the specified literature and submit at least 3 discussion questions per class which will be used for discussion in class. The course will finish with a written case study analysis of inattention in an applied setting, for example inattention in driving. Examination will be based on assessment of the submitted discussion questions, in-class activity, and the written case study analysis.
Seminars
- Course introduction and first lecture
- Introduction, Active Vision and Visual Perception
- Vision-for-action and Vision-for-identification
- Overview and history of attention I
- Overview and history of attention II
- Stimulus-driven attention and goal-directed attention - Biased competition models
- Inattentional blindness and Change blindness
- Action-driven attention
- Case study presentations - Analysis of the problem of inattention in driving, or similar applied topic.
More information
Jonas Bärgman, jonas.bargman@chalmers.se, 031-772 5846
Lecturer
Jonas Bärgman, docent