Functional MRI of High-Level Vision
Course facts
- Payment: Free, no certificate
- Credits: Non Credit
- Learning style: Self-paced, start anytime
- Resources: Presentation Assignments; Written Assignments with Examples
MIT OpenCourseWare details
- As taught in: Fall 2007
- Department: Brain and Cognitive Sciences
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Learn to read and design fMRI studies of high-level vision: object recognition, faces, scenes, attention and awareness, with critique guides.
Functional MRI lets researchers watch the human brain interpret what it sees, and this class teaches students to read that work critically and design their own studies. Lectures cover the visual pathway, object and scene perception, faces, attention and awareness. Presentations of recent articles sit alongside fMRI methods, and a term paper proposes a new experiment. A class essay even asks whether fMRI could work as a lie detector.
What You Will Achieve
- Critically evaluate an fMRI study
- Design an fMRI experiment, including factorial designs
- Describe evidence on the FFA, PPA and LOC
- Write a review article that proposes a novel experiment
Program Overview
Methods and Pathways
The first weeks provide tools and anatomy.
- Introduction to fMRI and high-level vision
- Functional organization of the ventral visual pathway
- Basic neuroanatomy of the visual system
Objects, Scenes and Faces
The next weeks study what regions respond to.
- Visual recognition, object shape, and the LOC
- Scene perception and the PPA
- Face processing and the FFA
Attention and Beyond
Later weeks go to wider questions.
- Visual attention
- Visual awareness
- Classification methods, brain reading
- Development and effects of experience
Course Completion
Job Outlook
This training suits neuroscience and cognitive science research, especially neuroimaging work on perception.
Good for: Advanced students of brain and cognitive sciences who have taken statistics and at least one course in perception or cognition.
Keep in mind: Its articles date from about 2000 to 2007, so read them with later work in mind. You cannot run scans from here, and the textbook and articles are not supplied.
Bottom line: A guide to reading brain imaging papers skeptically, with useful instructions for critiques and proposals.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which book is required?
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging by Huettel, Song and McCarthy, 1st edition, 2004. Other resources include The Cognitive Neuroscience of Vision by Martha Farah.
What practical guides are included?
Instructions cover how to present a paper, how to critically evaluate fMRI studies, how to write a review article and propose a novel experiment, and how to present proposals.
Is there exam preparation material?
Yes. A list of example questions shows what the instructor expects, such as the difference between event-related and blocked designs and the multiple comparisons problem.
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