CSBBCS2015

The Group is on its way to Ottawa for CSBBCS 2015. We have four posters that will be presented over the weekend. Alex is continuing his decision based work with some interesting new ideas, and sharpened by his recent presentation at the Paris symposium. Syaheed and I have been working hard to understand how different modalities of attention (spatial and featural) respond to probability cues, and exactly what the effect is on performance. Is it mostly about precision, or does the shape of the error distribution also change? With Christie I have been looking at the reward side of things, again with an interest in shape changes. For us, it isn't only a question of whether errors become generally smaller, but is there an inevitable trade-off between increasing the proportion of small errors at the expense of having to suffer some great big whopping errors. Lastly, I have continued my work (with the help of a variety of undergraduates over the last couple of years) of looking at how exogenous cues might alter appearance. It was inspired by the Carrasco, Ling, and Read article of 2004. My conclusion is that attention both does, and does not, alter appearance. It depends on how you ask the question, and to my mind seems consistent with a multiple drafts account of conscious perception. All out posters are on the conference page. We look forward to comments and critiques.