11th Annual Fall Distinguished Lecture: Prof. Margaret S. Livingstone (Dept of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School)
Abstract: Artists have been doing experiments on vision longer than neurobiologists. Some major works of art have provided insights as to how we see; some of these insights are so fundamental that they can be understood in terms of the underlying neurobiology. The separate processing of color and form information has a parallel in artists' sense that color and luminance play very different roles in art. Many techniques developed over the centuries by artists can be understood in terms of the parallel organization of our visual systems. Dr. Livingstone will explore how artists have figured out important features about how our brains extract relevant information about faces and objects, and will discuss why learning disabilities may be associated with artistic talent.