生命科学联合中心学术报告

题目：Suppressive neural mechanisms: from perception to intelligence

报告人：DUJE TADIN, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Dept. of Brain and Cognitive Sciences

University of Rochester

时间：2016-3-31（周四），13:00-14:30pm

地点：北京大学王克桢楼1113室

联系人：方方  北大-清华生命科学联合中心

Perception operates on an immense amount of incoming information that greatly exceeds the brain`s processing capacity. Because of this fundamental limitation, the ability to suppress irrelevant information is a key determinant of perceptual efficiency. Here, I will present a series of studies investigating suppressive mechanisms in visual motion processing, namely perceptual suppression of large, background-like motions. These spatial suppression mechanisms are adaptive, operating only when sensory inputs are sufficiently robust to guarantee visibility. Converging correlational and causal evidence links these behavioral results with inhibitory center-surround mechanisms, namely those in cortical area MT.

What are functional roles of spatial suppression? Spatial suppression is weaker in old age and schizophrenia—as evident by paradoxically better-than-normal direction discriminations of large moving stimuli. Moreover, these subjects also exhibit deficits in figure-ground segregation, suggesting a functional connection. In recent studies, we report direct experimental evidence for a functional link between spatial suppression and figure-ground segregation

Finally, I will argue that the ability to suppress information is a fundamental neural process that applies not only to perception but also to cognition in general. Supporting this argument, we find that individual differences in spatial suppression of motion signals strongly predict individual variations in IQ scores (r = 0.71).

欢迎各位老师同学积极参加！