Human Information Processing: Vision, Memory, and Attention

As we interact with our environment, our senses absorb large amounts of information that our brains interpret and catalogue. This sensory data then influences how we learn from our environment and interact with it in the future.

This book examines recent research on vision, memory, and attention, three topics that are key to understanding how humans absorb, process, retain, and learn from sensory information. Using computational models and methodologies, the authors explain vision, memory, and attention as individual processes and demonstrate how they interconnect to influence human information processing.

The authors also describe real-world applications for this research, including technological advancements that can augment our senses and help us to gain more information from our environment.

Charles Chubb, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Cognitive Sciences at the University of California at Irvine. He also holds the position of adjunct senior scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

His research focuses on the computational basis of visual and auditory perception. His specific research interests include visual motion perception, texture perception, lightness and brightness perception, visual control of motor responses, camouflage, and also auditory perception of tonal variations. In addition, at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, he performs psychophysical experiments to analyze the visual processing performed by cuttlefish as they camouflage themselves in response to the visual properties of their surroundings.

Dr. Chubb received his bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Princeton University in 1973. He then taught seventh and eighth grade English for 6 years at the Friends Academy in Locust Valley, New York, returning to graduate school in 1980 at New York University, from which he received his PhD in psychology in 1985. After a postdoctoral fellowship with George Sperling at New York University, in 1989 Dr. Chubb joined the psychology department at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, in New Brunswick, where he was a faculty member until moving to the cognitive sciences department at the University of California at Irvine in 1996.

He is an associate editor for Attention, Perception & Psychophysics and a topical editor for the Journal of the Optical Society of America A.

Barbara A. Dosher, PhD, is a Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Sciences at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). She studies how humans perceive, remember, and retrieve information using a combination of behavioral testing and mathematical modeling.

Her early research studied the speed and accuracy of retrieval from short-term memory and forgetting of both conscious and subconscious memories. Her recent work seeks to understand how attention and learning affect the accuracy of human perception and to develop quantitative models of state-dependent perceptual processes and visual memory. The National Science Foundation, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the National Institutes of Mental Health, and the National Eye Institute have funded her research.

Dr. Dosher received her bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of California, San Diego, in 1973 and her PhD in experimental psychology from the University of Oregon in 1977. She was a professor of psychology at Columbia University from 1977 to 1992, when she joined the faculty of UCI in the Department of Cognitive Sciences.

She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the American Psychological Society and the Society for Experimental Psychologists, and is a past president of the Society for Mathematical Psychology. She is an elected member of the executive board of the Vision Sciences Society, was an associate editor for Psychological Review and has served on the editorial boards of journals in cognitive psychology and vision science.

She has served as dean of the UCI School of Social Sciences since 2002.

Zhong-Lin Lu, PhD, obtained a BS in theoretical physics from the University of Science and Technology of China in 1989 and a PhD under Samuel J. Williamson in physics at New York University (1989-1992). This was followed by a 4-year postdoctorate in cognitive science with George Sperling at University of California, Irvine.

He joined the University of Southern California as an assistant professor in 1996 and was appointed professor of psychology and biomedical engineering in 2004 and William M. Keck Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience in 2006. In 2011, he joined the Ohio State University as Distinguished Professor of Social and Behavioral Science, professor of psychology, and director of Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Brain Imaging.

Dr. Lu is a fellow of the Society of Experimental Psychologists and the Association for Psychological Science.

The goal of Dr. Lu’s research is to construct computational brain models for perception and cognition -- models sufficiently computational such that they can be represented in a computer program or mathematical theory. Psychophysical experimentation, physiological investigation, clinical testing, and computational modeling are all essential ingredients and tools in his research.

He has been actively engaged in the (a) computational and psychophysical study of visual and auditory perception, attention, and perceptual learning; (b) functional brain imaging study of sensory and attentional processes, second language learning, and human decision making; and (c) study of visual deficits in dyslexia, amblyopia and Alzheimer’s disease.

Since 1991, he has published two edited books, three special issues, 180 articles, and more than 200 abstracts.

Richard M. Shiffrin, PhD, is Distinguished Professor and Luther Dana Waterman Professor at Indiana University, as well as professor of psychological and brain sciences, cognitive science, and statistics. He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society.

He is the recipient of the Rumelhart Prize, William James Fellow Award, APA Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award, and the Society of Experimental Psychologists Warren Medal.

He has published widely on human memory and information processing in journals such as Psychological Review and Psychonomic Bulletin and Review and in the book series The Psychology of Learning and Motivation.