Teaching Sensation and Perception Fall 2012

I am honored to be invited by the Department of Psychology at The Catholic University of America to teach Sensation and Perception for the Fall of 2012.

Sensation and perception is one of my favorite topics, sitting at the intercetion of cognitive psychology, neurosicence, cluture, and personal experience.

One of my goals for the class is reimagining the instruction of sensation and perception. Sensation and perception is a complex, inherently dynamic topic, and its instruction should reflect those properties. I am updating the curriculum and bridging the gap between the tradiational classroom and Khan Academy-style learning to best serve my students. Those aims are reflected in my syllabus. I am excited to leverage cutting-edge online resourses, such as the video below.

Asking a Better Question in Neuroscience

The mysteries of the brain are often taken for granted. The average person (and their billions of neurons) is amazing system that adapts to a complex world in quickly and effortlessly. We are still at the first stages of understanding the neurobiology of healthy systems.

However neuroscience chooses not to expolore those everyday mysteries, instead choosing to focus on disfunctions, disorders, and diseases. Those mysteries are no less interesting but have limited application. Successful breakthroughs in the neuroscience of disfunction, disorder, and disease could directly help hundreds (perhaps thousands). Succesful breakthoughs in basic neuroscience could directly help millions (perahaps billions).

That distinction makes my research choices easier.

Idea List & Hit List

For every project I have two running lists: an idea list and a hit list. I sperate thinking (idea list) from doing (hit list).

An idea list is an inbox for a specific project. It welcomes all, without critical evaluation.

A hit list are the next actions for a specific project. I take ephemeral elements from the idea list and transform them into the physical reality of action. Since a hit list is commitments (to myself), it stays short (with lots of critical evaluation).

Externalizing my thoughts and furture actions allows them to be more easily tweaked and changed.

The concepts are most important but there are tricks & tips - these lists are text files synced via Dropbox. That means I can work anywhere and anytime, not in the frantic workaholism but in a reckless joy.

Neuroscience as Frontier

Universally, the frontier is a place for explorers, pioneers, and settlers to change and be changed.

I put my money (and time and attention) on neuroscience as a science frontier of my lifetime.

I have been changed by my explorations of the neuroscience frontier. Given the pace of change in the field, I developed the ability to modify previously held beliefs. Given the range of topics that could influence a project, I developed a basic working knowledge in many academic fields (from neuroanatomy to applied mathematics). In order to ask the questions worth answering, I took the time to develop deep expertise in a narrow specialty.

Those abilities also enrich my life outside of science.

Advice to young scientists: E.O. Wilson on TED.com

This video rings true for me.

Even though I am trained as a computational cognitive neuroscientist, my math skills are not strong. I routinely apply linear algebra to solve problems but have flunked out of the formal class!

While training young scientists, I try to spark a curiosity for understanding the world, followed with rigorous, systematic investigation.

As I make my own transition from young scientist to young investigator, I am seeking a niche to make my a contribution. One possibility is the study of category learning via magnetoencephalography (MEG). It is a small field. There is only one other person conducting similar research (to the best of my knowledge). Despite its size, it is ripe with possibilities. The ability to study brain signals on the order of 100ms has the potential answer long-standing questions about this fundamental human capacity.

The Power (and Limit) of Networks

Metaphors matter - They shape the nature of inquiry by limiting the questions worth asking. If you choose a tree as your metaphor, you will look for simple, linear connections. If you choose a network as your metaphor, you will look for complex, but-still-linear connections.

Right now, the problems worth solving are nonlinear. We need nonlinear metaphors.

Builders & Testers

In athletic training, there are builders and there are testers. 26.2 miles is the tester for a marathon. Putting in the miles everyday is the builder.

In research, finished projects are the testers. Ideas (supported by emprical data) are put into the world. They are sometimes accepted, more often rejected.

At the begining, just completing projects builds towards better projects (i.e., testers and builders are the same). But then something more needs to happen to improve.

I am not sure what are the best builders for research. Could it be books, workshops, conferences, or having lunch with better researchers? I am trying all of them and will let you know when I find the right combination,