Connectionists: NIPS 2007 workshop, Call for Posters - 'Beyond Simple Cells: Probabilistic models for visual cortical processing'

[Richard Turner]

---------- CALL FOR POSTERS ----------
 
Beyond Simple Cells: Probabilistic models for visual cortical processing
NIPS 2007 workshop, December 7
 
Organizers:
Richard Turner, Pietro Berkes, and Maneesh Sahani
(Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit, UCL)

Web page: http://www.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk/~berkes/docs/NIPS07

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SUBMISSION DETAILS:

This one day workshop (description below) will include a poster session. 
 
We encourage contributions from workshop participants, especially those
wanting to actively take part in the discussion phases.

Authors should submit an extended abstract of max 2 pages to the
organizers:

Richard Turner: turner at gatsby.ucl.ac.uk 
Pietro Berkes:  berkes at gatsby.ucl.ac.uk 

The abstracts will also be published on our web site.

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DEADLINES:

Abstract submission: Oct, 24
Acceptance Notification: Oct, 26
 
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WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION:

The goal of the workshop is to assess the success of computational
models for cortical processing based on probabilistic models and to
suggest new directions for future research. Models for simple cells
are now well established; how can the field progress beyond them?

We will review important questions in the field through both
theoretical and experimental lenses. We have invited a panel of
experimentalists to provide the latter with the hope of inspiring new
research directions of greater general neuroscientific interest.

More precisely, the issues to be discussed include:

    * Moving beyond a two-layer hierarchy: how can we bridge the gap
      between objects and Gabors?
 
    * What experimental results should we attempt to model? Are
      current comparisons with physiology at all relevant?
 
    * What experimental results would we like to have?

    * What aspects of visual input are relevant for modeling (eye
      movements, head movements, color etc.)? How relevant is time?
 
    * Is the cortical representation best described by energy models
      or generative models?
 
    * What inference and learning algorithms should we use (beyond
      MAP: MCMC, CD, VB, score matching)?
 
Modelers will present their current work in short talks. The
experimentalists, on the other hand, will form a panel of experts
which will drive the discussion, bringing their perspective into play,
and constructively expose discrepancies with biology.
 
Through this process, the aim is to attack the main list of questions
above, and determine which aspects of the vision problem would
especially benefit from a stronger collaboration between modelers and
experimentalists. In addition we will have a poster session in which
attendees will be able to present state of the art work.
 
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CONFIRMED SPEAKERS:

Michael Black 
Odelia Schwartz 
Bruno Olshausen 
Mike Lewicki 

CONFIRMED PANEL MEMBERS:

Dario Ringach 
Jozsef Fiser 
Andreas Tolias