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Visual Motion Detector
This website from Union College contains a description and explanation of a computer model of visual motion perception that uses sequential digital frames (such as digital video) to analyze natural scenes. The model consists of a two-dimensional grid of elementary motion detection neural circuits, which, together, can detect and quantify motion even in very complex scenes. It can detect the local direction and relative strength of motion in any portion of a scene. By showing how changes in the properties of simple motion detection circuits alter the way in which natural moving stimuli are likely to be perceived, the model can help students understand how animals might be able to distinguish motion important to their survival from unimportant motion, such as wind rustling across a field of vegetation. The website also illustrates the basic function of correlation-type visual motion detector circuits. A tutorial explaining the basics of using the motion detector program is on the website. Users can also download the MATLAB source code necessary to run the program.
Visual Tour: Bird
This first example shows how the landing and subsequent hopping of a bird against a simple, stationary background stimulates the detector.
Media: Web page/JavaProgram Director: Leo Fleishman, Ph.D.
Award Years: 1988, 1993, 2004
Summary: Union College is a private baccalaureate institution in Schenectady, New York. Its HHMI-funded initiatives include:
- New lab modules on bioengineering topics, which can be inserted into existing courses as a one- or multi-day lab exercise, to introduce students to more quantitative methods than are traditionally found in biology courses;
- Summer science workshops for high school students, including those from groups underrepresented in the sciences, to study interdisciplinary approaches (computer science, engineering, and/or molecular biology) to biomedical topics; and
- A Center for Bioengineering and Computational Biology to improve the quantitative and experimental skills of undergraduate students by promoting interdisciplinary teaching and research.