[TN-Bird] Re: Prosopagnosia, fusiform gyrus & birding
- From: kbreault <kbreault@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: thomas.j.palmeri@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx, tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2010 17:31:08 -0700 (PDT)
Great information, Tom. I'm sure many TN birders will sign up. I look forward
to participating!
Kevin Breault
Brentwood
________________________________
From: Thomas Palmeri <thomas.j.palmeri@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "kbreault@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <kbreault@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>; "tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx"
<tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: "kbreault@xxxxxxxx" <kbreault@xxxxxxxx>; Thomas Palmeri
<thomas.j.palmeri@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tue, September 14, 2010 5:13:59 PM
Subject: [TN-Bird] Re: Prosopagnosia, fusiform gyrus & birding
I wanted chime in and note that birders have really played an important role
in our understanding of how perception, memory, and the brain changes as
people develop expertise in a highly visual domain. Isabel Gauthier and I
share a lab group at Vanderbilt. I¹ve met a number of TN birders over the
past couple of years with my son, Matthew, who¹s an avid young birder. My
professional life is as a faculty member in Psychology and Neuroscience at
Vanderbilt. A core area of my research is understanding the development of
perceptual expertise.
My lab is now looking for birders of all levels of experience to help us get
started on a large-scale project looking at perception and memory for birds.
We really mean all levels of experience, from the beginning birder to the
expert with decades of study.
If you are interested in helping us in our research on birding, or want more
information, please email me.
We have developed an initial set of simple online web-based experiments that
test perception and memory for birds and other animals and objects. Our goal
is to eventually recruit hundreds (or even thousands) of birders from across
the continent. To get started, we are hoping we can get a bunch of TN
birders to help us pilot test our studies and provide feedback. Each
experimental session takes less than half an hour and can take place on your
favorite computer wherever and whenever you decide to do it. It¹s all
online. Compensation will be provided.
The web site for our experiments will be online soon. We will post a link to
it on tn-bird as soon as it¹s ready to go live to the world. For now, we
want to work directly with as many TN birders as we can get to help us out.
You can learn more about some of the work we¹ve done by checking out our web
sites:
http://catlab.psy.vanderbilt.edu
http://gauthier.psy.vanderbilt.edu/pen/
http://gauthier.psy.vanderbilt.edu
Also, our research group (the Perceptual Expertise Network) has published a
book called Perceptual Expertise: Bridging Brain and Behavior. Research with
birders features prominently throughout the book. (While I contributed a
chapter to the book, my only compensation was three free copies and the good
will of the scientific community, so this is not really an advertisement,
just an fyi.)
Thanks.
Tom
----------------------------
Thomas J. Palmeri
Associate Professor
Director of Graduate Studies
Department of Psychology
507 Wilson Hall
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN 37212
tel: 615-343-7900
fax: 615-343-8449
http://catlab.psy.vanderbilt.edu
On 9/14/10 2:22 PM, "kbreault" <kbreault@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> TN Birders:
> There is an interesting article in the August 30th New Yorker written by
> Oliver
> Sacks (the well known neurologist with books including, An Anthropologist on
> Mars and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, on the inability some people
> have to recognize faces and places, prosopagnosia. An abstract is available
> at:
> www.newyorker.com (the full article requires subscription). It appears that
> lesions on the fusiform gyrus, a part of the brain also known as the "fusiform
> face area," and that responsible for face recognition, can cause
> prosopagnosia.
> The interface (as it were) between humans and birds is in this part of
> the article: "Isabel Gauthier and her colleagues tested a group of car experts
> and a group of expert birders, comparing them with a group of normal
> subjects.
> The fusiform face area, they found, was activated when all the groups looked
> at
> pictures of faces. But it was also activated in the car experts when they
> were
> asked to identify particular cars, and in the birders when they were asked to
> identify particular birds. The fusiform face area is tuned primarily for
> facial
> recognition, it seems, but some of it can be trained to distinguish individual
> items of other sorts. (If, then, an expert bird spotter or car buff is
> unlikely
> enough to acquire prosopagnosia, he will also, we might suspect, lose his
> ability to identify birds or cars.)" Note that Gauthier is a professor of
> psychology at Vanderbilt and her publication on birders is: Gauthier, I., et
> al., "Expertise for cars and birds recruits brain areas involved in face
> recognition, Nature Neuroscience, 2000, 3 (2), 191-197.
>
> Kevin Breault
> Brentwood
>
> =================NOTES TO SUBSCRIBER=====================
>
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>
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> wallace@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> ------------------------------
> Assistant Moderator Andy Jones
> Cleveland, OH
> -------------------------------
> Assistant Moderator Dave Worley
> Rosedale, VA
> --------------------------------
> Assistant Moderator Chris O'Bryan
> Clarksville, TN
> __________________________________________________________
>
> Visit the Tennessee Ornithological Society
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> _____________________________________________________________
>
>
----------------------------
Thomas J. Palmeri
Associate Professor
Director of Graduate Studies
Department of Psychology
507 Wilson Hall
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN 37212
tel: 615-343-7900
fax: 615-343-8449
http://catlab.psy.vanderbilt.edu
=================NOTES TO SUBSCRIBER=====================
The TN-Bird Net requires you to SIGN YOUR MESSAGE with
first and last name, CITY (TOWN) and state abbreviation.
You are also required to list the COUNTY in which the birds
you report were seen. The actual DATE OF OBSERVATION should
appear in the first paragraph.
_____________________________________________________________
To post to this mailing list, simply send email to:
tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
_____________________________________________________________
To unsubscribe, send email to:
tn-bird-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field.
______________________________________________________________
TN-Bird Net is owned by the Tennessee Ornithological Society
Neither the society(TOS) nor its moderator(s)
endorse the views or opinions expressed
by the members of this discussion group.
Moderator: Wallace Coffey, Bristol, TN
wallace@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
------------------------------
Assistant Moderator Andy Jones
Cleveland, OH
-------------------------------
Assistant Moderator Dave Worley
Rosedale, VA
--------------------------------
Assistant Moderator Chris O'Bryan
Clarksville, TN
__________________________________________________________
Visit the Tennessee Ornithological Society
web site at http://www.tnbirds.org
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
ARCHIVES
TN-Bird Net Archives at //www.freelists.org/archives/tn-bird/
MAP RESOURCES
Tenn.Counties Map at http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/states/tennessee3.gif
Aerial photos to complement google maps http://local.live.com
_____________________________________________________________
=================NOTES TO SUBSCRIBER=====================
The TN-Bird Net requires you to SIGN YOUR MESSAGE with
first and last name, CITY (TOWN) and state abbreviation.
You are also required to list the COUNTY in which the birds
you report were seen. The actual DATE OF OBSERVATION should
appear in the first paragraph.
_____________________________________________________________
To post to this mailing list, simply send email to:
tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
_____________________________________________________________
To unsubscribe, send email to:
tn-bird-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field.
______________________________________________________________
TN-Bird Net is owned by the Tennessee Ornithological Society
Neither the society(TOS) nor its moderator(s)
endorse the views or opinions expressed
by the members of this discussion group.
Moderator: Wallace Coffey, Bristol, TN
wallace@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
------------------------------
Assistant Moderator Andy Jones
Cleveland, OH
-------------------------------
Assistant Moderator Dave Worley
Rosedale, VA
--------------------------------
Assistant Moderator Chris O'Bryan
Clarksville, TN
__________________________________________________________
Visit the Tennessee Ornithological Society
web site at http://www.tnbirds.org
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
ARCHIVES
TN-Bird Net Archives at //www.freelists.org/archives/tn-bird/
MAP RESOURCES
Tenn.Counties Map at http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/states/tennessee3.gif
Aerial photos to complement google maps http://local.live.com
_____________________________________________________________
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