Berlin School of Mind and Brain offers monthly public lectures

The Berlin School of Mind and Brain is an international graduate
research school. It offers a three-year doctoral degree program in
English. The focus of research at the School is on the interface
between the humanities and behavioral sciences with the neurosciences.


Every semester the Berlin School of Mind and Brain offers its public
?Distinguished lecture series“. All are welcome!







Human beings are capable of reaching out and grasping objects with
great accuracy and precision – and vision plays a critical role in the
control of this ability.  The visual guidance of these skilled
movements, however, requires transformations of incoming visual
information that are quite different from those required for visual
perception.  For us to grasp an object successfully, our brain
must compute the actual (absolute) size of the goal object, and its
orientation and position with respect to our hand and fingers – and
must ignore the relative size or distance of the object with respect to
other elements in the visual array.  These differences in the
required computations have led to the emergence of dedicated visuomotor
modules in the dorsal visual stream that are quite separate from the
networks in the ventral visual stream that mediate our conscious
perception of the world.  Although the identification and
selection of goal objects and an appropriate course of action depends
on the perceptual machinery of the ventral stream and associated
cognitive modules in the temporal and frontal lobes, the execution of
the subsequent goal-directed action is mediated by dedicated on-line
control systems in the dorsal stream and associated motor areas. 
But even though the dorsal stream may allow an observer to reach out
and grasp objects with exquisite ease, it is trapped in the present. By
itself, the dorsal stream can deal only with objects that are visible
when the action is being programmed. The ventral stream, however,
allows an observer to escape the present and bring to bear information
from the past – including information about the function of objects,
their intrinsic properties, and their location with reference to other
objects in the world. Ultimately then, both streams contribute to the
production of goal-directed actions.



Melvyn A. Goodale is Professor at the Centre for Brain and Mind,
University of Western Ontario, London ON N6A 5C2 Canada







The Berlin School of Mind and Brain runs a mailing list to advertise
lectures and seminars. Subscribe by sending a blank e-mail to: mind.brain.verteiler-subscribe? Bitte fügen Sie an dieser Stelle ein @ ein ?lists.hu-berlin? Bitte fügen Sie an dieser Stelle einen Punkt ein ?de






FURTHER INFORMATION
 

Annette Winkelmann

Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin

Berlin School of Mind and Brain

Luisenstrasse 56

10099 Berlin

Tel.: +49 (0)30 2093-1706

Fax: +49 (0)30 2093-1802

annette.winkelmann? Bitte fügen Sie an dieser Stelle ein @ ein ?hu-berlin? Bitte fügen Sie an dieser Stelle einen Punkt ein ?de


www.mind-and-brain.de