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[KIMBERLY POULSON]

MEMORANDUM
TO:     Faculty, Graduate Students, Auxiliary Faculty and other interested
        parties

FROM:   William Johnston/Charlie Shimp

TOPIC:  William F. Prokasy Lecture

     This year's William F. Prokasy Lecturer will be Dr. Irving Biederman.

     Dr. Biederman will speak on Tuesday, May 11, at 5:00 p.m. in BEH SCI
110.  The title is "Shape Recognition in Mind and Brain."

     Dr. Irving Biederman is the William M. Keck Professor of Cognitive
Neuroscience at the University of Southern California, where he is a member
of the Departments of Psychology, Computer Science, and Neuroscience and Head
of the Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience Program.  Professor Biederman
has proposed a theory of real-time human object recognition that posits that
objects and scenes are represented as an arrangement of simple volumetric
primitives, termed geons.  This theory has undergone extensive assessment in
psychophysical experiments.  Recently, he has employed neural network models
to provide a more biologically based version of the geon-assemblage theory
which is currently undergoing tests through single unit recording experiments
in monkeys and the study of the impairment of object recognition in patients
with a variety of neurological symptoms.

     Prior to his recent appointment at USC, Dr. Biederman was the
Fesler-Lampert Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science at
the University of Minnesota.  He has been a member of panels for the National
Science Foundation, National Research Council, and the Air Force Office of
Scientific Research, where he served as the first Program Manager
(consulting) for the Cognitive Science Program.

     Please put these dates on your calendars.