NIPS Workshop: Selective Attention

[Thomas Hildebrandt]

I wish to call your attention to a workshop on selective attention
which I will be hosting at this year's NIPS conference.


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		  NIPS*93 Postconference Workshop

   Functional Models of Selective Attention and Context Dependency
			December 4, 1993


Intended Audience: Those applying NNs to vision and speech analysis
	and pattern recognition tasks, as well as computational
	neurobiologists modelling attentional mechanisms.

Organizer: Thomas H. Hildebrandt
	   thildebr at athos.eecs.lehigh.edu


ABSTRACT: Classification based on trainable models still fails to
achieve the current ideal of human-like performance.  One identifiable
reason for this failure is the disparity between the number of
training examples needed to achieve good performance (large) and the
number of labelled samples available for training (small).  On certain
tasks, humans are able to generalize well when given only one
exemplar.  Clearly, a different mechanism is at work.

In human behavior, there are numerous examples of selective attention
improving a person's recognition capabilities.  Models using context
or selective attention seek to improve classification performance by
modifying the behavior of a classifier based on the current (and
possibly recent) input data.  Because they treat learning and
contextual adaptation as two different processes, these models solve
the memory/plasticity dilemma by incorporating both.  In other words,
they differ fundamentally from models which attempt to provide
contextual adaptation by allowing all the weights in the network to
continue evolving while the system is in operation.


Schedule					December 4, 1993
========					================

7:30 - 7:35	Opening Remarks

7:35 - 8:00	Current Research in Selective Attention
		Thomas H. Hildebrandt, Lehigh University

8:00 - 8:30	Context-varying Preferences and Traits in a Class of
		Neural Networks 
		Daniel S. Levine, University of Texas at Arlington
		Samuel J. Leven, For a New Social Science

8:30 - 9:00	ETS - A Formal Model of an Evolving Learning Machine
		L.Goldfarb, J.Abela, V.Kamat, University of New Brunswick

9:00 - 9:30	Recognizing Handwritten Digits Using a Selective
		Attention Mechanism 
		Ethem Alpaydin, Bogazici University, Istanbul TURKEY

9:30 - 4:30	FREE TIME

4:30 - 5:00	Context and Selective Attention in the Capital Markets
		P. N. Refenes, London Business School

5:00 - 5:30	The Global Context-Sensitive Constraint Satisfaction Property
		in Adaptive Perceptual Pattern Recognition
		Jonathan A. Marshall, University of North Carolina

5:30 - 6:00	Neural Networks for Context Sensitive Representation
		of Synonymous and Homonymic Patterns
		Albert Nigrin, American University

6:00 - 6:30	Learn to Pay Attention, Young Network!
		Barak A. Pearlmutter, Siemens Corp. Research Ctr., 
		Princeton NJ

6:30 - 6:35	Closing Remarks

7:00		Workshop Wrap-Up (common to all sessions)

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The topic to be covered differs from that recently announced by Ernst
Niebur and Bruno Olshausen, in that "functional" models are not
necessarily tied to neurophysiological structures.  Thanks to the
Workshop Chair, Mike Mozer, the two workshops were scheduled on
different days, so that it is possible for interested parties to
attend both.

An electronic copy of the 1993 NIPS registration brochure is available
in postscript format via anonymous ftp at helper.systems.caltech.edu
in /pub/nips/NIPS_93_brochure.ps.Z.  For a hardcopy of the brochure or
other information, please send a request to nips93 at systems.caltech.edu
or to: NIPS Foundation, P.O. Box 60035, Pasadena, CA 91116-6035.

Feel free to contact me for more information on the workshop.

				Thomas H. Hildebrandt
				Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
				Lehigh University
				Bethlehem, PA  18015
				Work: (215) 758-4063
				FAX:  (215) 758-6279
				thildebr at athos.eecs.lehigh.edu