课程概况
知道东西的位置是轻而易举的一件事。但隐藏在这表面之下，你的大脑将应用大量的计算能力，来找出你和你周围的世界最简单的细节并对它定位。认出母亲，找到电话，去杂货店，弹班卓琴——这些都需要仔细侦查和协调不同的感觉和运动区域。本课程追踪了大脑的侦查工作，来产生这种空间感，并认为大脑的空间集聚会渗透到我们的认知能力中，从而影响着我们思考和记忆的方式。
本课程的资料与知觉或系统神经学课程所经常涉及到的材料有所重叠。
This course is about how the brain creates our sense of spatial location from a variety of sensory and motor sources, and how this spatial sense in turn shapes our cognitive abilities.
Knowing where things are is effortless. But “under the hood,” your brain must figure out even the simplest of details about the world around you and your position in it. Recognizing your mother, finding your phone, going to the grocery store, playing the banjo – these require careful sleuthing and coordination across different sensory and motor domains. This course traces the brain’s detective work to create this sense of space and argues that the brain’s spatial focus permeates our cognitive abilities, affecting the way we think and remember.
The material in this course is based on a book I’ve written for a general audience. The book is called “Making Space: How the Brain Knows Where Things Are”, and is available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or directly from Harvard University Press.
The course material overlaps with classes on perception or systems neuroscience, and can be taken either before or after such classes.
Dr. Jennifer M. Groh, Ph.D.
Professor
Psychology & Neuroscience; Neurobiology
Duke University
www.duke.edu/~jmgroh
Jennifer M. Groh is interested in how the brain process spatial information in different sensory systems, and how the brain’s spatial codes influence other aspects of cognition. She is the author of a recent book entitled “Making Space: How the Brain Knows Where Things Are” (Harvard University Press, fall 2014).
Much of her research concerns differences in how the visual and auditory systems encode location, and how vision influences hearing. Her laboratory has demonstrated that neurons in auditory brain regions are sometimes responsive not just to what we hear but also to what direction we are looking and what visual stimuli we can see. These surprising findings challenge the prevailing assumption that the brain’s sensory pathways remain separate and distinct from each other at early stages, and suggest a mechanism for such multi-sensory interactions as lip-reading and ventriloquism (the capture of perceived sound location by a plausible nearby visual stimulus).
Dr. Groh has been a professor at Duke University since 2006. She received her undergraduate degree in biology from Princeton University in 1988 before studying neuroscience at the University of Michigan (Master’s, 1990), the University of Pennsylvania (Ph.D., 1993), and Stanford University (postdoctoral, 1994-1997). Dr. Groh has been teaching undergraduate classes on the neural basis of perception and memory for over fifteen years. She is presently a faculty member at the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences at Duke University. She also holds appointments in the Departments of Neurobiology and Psychology & Neuroscience at Duke.
Dr. Groh’s research has been supported by a variety of sources including the John S. Guggenheim Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Program, the McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience, the John Merck Scholars Program, the EJLB Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Whitehall Foundation, and the National Organization for Hearing Research.
课程大纲
1. 视觉
视觉： 从大脑的核酸分子光开关，到一个深度的世界
该单元解释了什么是光，它是如何被眼睛里的光感器所检测到的。 它包括了可追溯到古希腊的视觉研究史，并描述了天文学家开普勒在推断视觉场景时，眼睛是如何帮助他作出推断的。 通过如马格里特和埃舍尔这样的不同艺术家的例子，来探索二维投影到视网膜表面上的视觉场景，是如何被大脑解读为一个三维的世界的。
2. 躯体感觉
躯体感觉: 衡量和误判自己的形状，以及为什么负数（对大脑而言）是困难的
本单元介绍我们如何了解我们的身体部分的位置。 会涉及到一些有趣的身体位置感觉的错觉。体位感觉和触觉的结合会感受到固体的三维位置和形状。
3. 脑图谱
脑图谱和圆点花样
本单元介绍了负责视觉和触觉的感觉处理的大脑机制，强调了大脑视觉和感觉路径的感测图的形成。 探索了这些图片和其他神经响应特性空间的感知的影响，尤其是物体运动和轮廓。 讨论了在感测图中使用电刺激来探索它们与感知的关系的实验。
4. 听觉
夏洛克的耳朵: 大脑如何找到声音
本单元将转向从间接的测量退单触控键位置的感觉系统 对视觉和触觉而言，感觉器能感受到实物的空间位置: 不同位置的物体将激活不同的感受器。 对于听力，大脑必须比较和对比到达每个耳朵的声音来推测源点的位置。 本单元讨论了工作原理，从声音本身的性质到大脑所解释的随位置而变化声音属性。
5. 大脑测量空间的工具
随图和测量工具而移动
本单元介绍了大脑中空间信号的计量。 有点晦涩但更常见的称之为速率编码，这种表示法涉及与空间位置相称的神经反应速度——能表明位置的仪表。这样的编码被运用到了运动、体位感觉和早期的听觉通路中。
6. 参考坐标系
定义空间：参考坐标系
空间位置是相对参考位置来测量的，但这些参考位置因，感官输入的类型而有所不同。 视觉的参考位置是眼睛，听觉的参考位置是耳朵。 本单元讨论一些与此相关的想法，描述了大脑不同的坐标系之间的转换机制。 随着身体和感官越过环境和时间而合成一种空间感，需要综合不同时间和位置的感觉输入的记忆。
7. 导航
要去的地方：平衡、流动、步骤和捷径
本单元转而关注两方面： (a) 它涉及大规模空间如从一个地方到另一个地方的旅行，和 (b)它涉及自己在环境中的位置，而不是该场景中物体或事件的位置。 结合平衡感的作用和自己的动作。 描述了航行了很长距离的动物物种，及它们是如何做到这一点的。
8. 空间与记忆
本单元构建了空间感和其他类型的认知之间的几个重要联系中的第一种。 记忆在许多方面与空间处理相关。 本单元讨论了海马体在导航与记忆中的作用，并叙述了病人HM的故事，他的海马体在1950年被手术摧毁，从而引起终生的健忘症。
9. 从空间思考
本单元认为对空间敏感的大脑区域，不只是评估位置。 相反，这些地区负责认知过程，如注意、决策和规划未来的行动。 这种大脑对空间输入进行的计算，类似于大脑对抽象概念和想法所进行的运算。 空间思维和更一般的思维方式，可能需要类似的大脑机制。
