[visionlist] ECVP2006 Symposium on Associative Learning in Perception

[Benjamin Backus]

Yuri Shelepin, organizer of the 2006 European Conference on Visual
Perception, has asked my help in organizing a symposium on the topic of 
"Associative Learning in Perception (Pavlov and Perception)".  This 
topic has received renewed interest with the recent demonstration that 
the appearance of a bistable stimulus can be controlled by newly learned 
cues.  By happy coincidence this year's conference is in St. Petersburg, 
home of Pavlov's famous laboratory.  ECVP runs August 20-25 this year.

The symposium has these aims: (1) to discuss the relationship between 
various forms of perceptual learning--cue re-weighting, cue recruitment, 
recalibration, and learning to discriminate; (2) to develop consensus 
about appropriate methods for the experimental study of learned changes 
in appearance; and (3) to review probabilistic approaches to perception 
dating from the 1940's that were inspired by Pavlov's work and that have 
relevance once again in light of modern Bayesian approaches to perception.

I would like to encourage anyone interested in this topic to come to
ECVP this year, and if possible to submit an abstract.  The structure of 
the symposium will leave more time than usual for discussion and remarks 
by those in attendance.  It would be helpful to me to hear from those 
who think it likely they will attend.

Andrew Watson, the Editor in Chief of the Journal of Vision, suggests 
that work presented at ECVP on associative learning in perception could 
serve as the basis for a special issue in the Journal of Vision, if 
there is sufficient interest.

To submit an abstract to ECVP2006, please visit
http://www.ecvp2006.ru/. The deadline for abstract submission is
March 15.  It is not necessary to select this symposium as your "Topic 
Preference" during abstract submission, but kindly let me know if your 
submission is related to the symposium so that I can be aware of it.

-- 

Ben Backus
Department of Psychology
University of Pennsylvania
http://psych.upenn.edu/~backus