From: Richard Russell <rrussell@MIT.EDU>

1) open research question/project idea:
Does IT also code for general object identity? What kind of deficits do
people with large temporal lobe lesions have in recognizing objects on the
basis of touch? sound? How amodal are these regions?

2) Short answer:
What is the evidence that IT is not the only brain area to be capable of
shape recognition?

3) Multiple choice: 
What is the name of the inability to recognize objects, despite normal
low-level vision (ie accuity, color perception, etc.)?
A) apperceptive agnosia
B) prosopagnosia
C) integrative agnosia
D) associative agnosia


-----
From: Janice Chen <kanile@MIT.EDU>

1. Does the removal of cortex in monkey STS impair the ability to
identify orientation of things other than gaze? For instance, can the
test monkey discriminate between human and monkey figures whose bodies
face in different directions, or faces of different orientations in which
the eyes are closed? 

2. The position of the brain damage that leads to associative agnosia in
humans is quite different from the position of the area in which face
cells are abundant for monkeys. Does this cast doubt on face cell
research in monkeys? Why? 

3. In what part of the monkey brain are face cells supposedly located? 
a) superior temporal sulcus (correct)
b) hippocampus 
c) hypothalamus 
d) suprachiasmatic nucleus 

-----
From: "Jennifer C. Shieh" <jcshieh@MIT.EDU>

1. Is it possible, in a machine model of visual processing, to make a
specific “lesion” matching lesions made in animal subjects or naturally
occurring in human subjects, and discover similar consequences? 

2. Explain the difference between Mishkin / Ungerleider’s analysis and
Goodale’s interpretation of differing visual processing streams. 

3. A lesion in what area might cause these types of symptoms in a patient:
- inability to distinguish between simple geometric shapes, i.e. square
and triangle
- no difficulty recognizing by touch or sound
- inability to copy a drawing while looking at a picture, but can draw
same objects from memory
- ability to grasp an object with accuracy despite deficits in describing
or identifying the object
- ability to execute visually guided movements

a. Posterior parietal cortex
b. Inferotemporal cortex
c. Superior colliculus
d. Primary visual cortex

-----
From: Charisse Massay <charisse@MIT.EDU>

1. Open research question: If we were to increase the size of a primate's
IT cortex through grafting, would it increase the animals ability to
recognize objects and remember them? Maybe create supermonkeys? There
would be more cells in the cortex and therefore more objects and views
would be registered. In tests, the supermonkey would peform better than
the normal monkeys. 

2. How would removal of the posterior parietal cortex affect memory? 

3. Which of the following best describe associative visual agnosia?
a. the patient cannot name objects
b. the patient cannot pick things up on the first try
c. the patient cannot count 
d. the patient cannot read


-----
From: Keith Thoresz <thorek@ai.mit.edu>

1. Goodale explored the phenomena of perception without action and vice
versa. Why have researchers neglected the phenomena of perception without
perception and action without action? 

2. What are some shortcomings of Tanaka’s model of IT cortex in which
columns store view-invariant pattern templates? 

3. A person with damage to IT cortex looks at a doorknob and is unable
to recognize it as such until motioning toward it to open the door. This
is an example of
a. Perception without action
b. Action without perception
c. Motion without action


-----
From: Jodi Davenport <jodi@MIT.EDU>

Research Project:
Try and determine what features the prospopagnosia patient who could
identify sheep was using. Would this be similar to people's general
inability to recognize faces of people of different races?

Short Answer:
What is prosopagnosia? Name one experiment that explored its specificity.

Multiple Choice:
What distinctions are made for the dorsal vs. ventral pathways in the
brain?
a) where vs. what pathways
b) action vs. perception pathways.
c) both a & b
d) none of the above


-----
From: Liina Pylkkanen <liina@MIT.EDU>

1. Open question/project idea

The Kanwisher et al hypothesis about the function of the FFA
predicts that there could be a disorder where faces couldn't
be distinguished from other types of stimuli whereas other types of
discrimination tasks would be intact. Are there such cases?

2. Short answer question

Which hypothesis about the role of the fusiform face area does the 
existence of prosopagnosia support?

3. Multiple choice:

Removing the face-cell area in macaque monkeys results in impaired
(i) face recognition. 
(ii) face detection.
(iii) discrimination of eye gaze. 


-----
From: "Amrys O. Williams" <amrys@MIT.EDU>

Research Question:
What would happen to the sheep farmer's recognition abilities if you
inverted the sheep faces?

Short Answer Question:
What are some problems with the AND/OR columnar model of object
representation in IT cortex?

Multiple Choice Question:
Parietal lesions lead to all of the following except:
a) problems in visually aided grasping
b) problems in aiming movements to targets
c) problems in describing the relative positions of objects in space
d) no defecits in object perception


-----
From: Yuri Ostrovsky <yostr@MIT.EDU>

Research Question:
What happens to the functional organization of the brain over time in 
patients with, e.g., prosopagnosia or other agnosias?

Short Answer Question:
What is one piece of evidence that a visual illusion does not necessarily 
alter one's behavior in other modalities (such as touch)?

Multiple Choice Question:
What does the case of prosopagnosic patient WJ (who was very good at 
identifying sheep) necessarily imply?
a. Non-human faces are easier to identify than human faces.
b. Even though there is a part of the brain generally responsible for 
recognizing faces, other brain areas take over this task due to plasticity.
c. There cannot be a region which holds primary responsibility for 
recognizing faces.
d. b and c
e. None of the above is necessarily true.


-----
From: Rich Prather <rprather@MIT.EDU>

1) How might an experimenter "jumble" the stimuli so that it can be
measured quantitativly? 

2) would different methods of altering visual stimuli show different
results? 

3) In the scrabled visual scene task subjects typically
a) perform the same when starting at the scrambled condition as the clear
condition
b) detect a change quicker when starting with the clear conditon
c) detect a change quicker when starting with the scrambled condition


-----
From: Matt Cain <mcain@MIT.EDU>

Further research:
Do other primates show anything akin to prosopagnosia? Can leasons to IT
cause them not to recognize other monkeys? 

Short Answer:
Beyond prosopagnosia, what, more general, problem did Sach's patient 
Dr. P suffer from? 

Multiple Choice:
Prosopagnosia is an inability to recognize:
a. objects
b. faces
c. hats
d. colors


-----
From: Andrew Yip <ayip@MIT.EDU>

Open research question/project idea:
Dr. P was able to perceive complex properties of objects, but was
unable to group these properties to form the perception of a whole object.
Perhaps such patients could be used to study what high-level processes are
responsible for turning complex features into an object percept. 

Short answer question:
Why does patient WJ's ability to recognize sheep support the idea of
his prosopagnosia being face-specific? 

Multiple choice question:
How did Dr. P perceive faces and complex objects?
a) as a whole object
b) as a loose collection of key features
c) he was unable to perceive any of their properties