Johannes Burge

Associate Professor

Assistant Professor

Post-doctoral fellow

PhD in Vision Science

BA in Psychology; Minor in Mathematics

Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania

Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania

Center for Perceptual Systems, UT Austin

Vision Science Program, UC Berkeley

Stanford University

Natural Scenes

Vision systems

Computation

Email: jburge [at] upenn [dot] edu

Office: Goddard Room 426

Lab:    Richards, 4th Floor

Department of Psychology

University of Pennsylvania

News

July, 2017:

Paper posted on biorXiv. Congratulations Arvind!

     Iyer AV, Burge J (2017). 


     The effect of depth variation on disparity tasks in natural scenes.


     biorXiv, doi: http://doi.org/10.1101/162222 [ html | pdf ]

July, 2017:

Uploaded new code repository for precisely sampling stereo-image patches from natural stereo-images! See the BurgeLab Github repository: http://github.com/burgelab/StereoImageSampling

July, 2017:

Paper posted on biorXiv. Congratulations Priyank!

    Jaini P, Burge J (2017).

     Linking normative models of natural tasks with descriptive models of neural response.

     biorXiv, doi: http://doi.org/10.1101/158741 [ html | pdf ]

June, 2017:

David White has joined the lab as a neuroscience graduate student. Welcome David!

May, 2017:

Arvind, Ben, Johannes, and Seha all presented at VSS! Two talks and two posters for the lab and a good response to everything. Not a bad showing!

May, 2017:

Johannes presented at the University of Nevada, Reno in Reno, NV.

April, 2017:

"The effect of depth variation on disparity tasks in natural scenes" has been submitted!

April, 2017:

"The lawful imprecision of human tilt estimation in natural scenes" has been submitted!

April, 2017:

Johannes presented at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY.

March, 2017:

Johannes presented Seha's work on "The lawful imprecision of human tilt estimation in natural scenes" at SUNY Optometry in New York City.

February, 2017:

Ben and Seha were awarded talks, and Arvind was awarded a poster at VSS! Congratulations!

February, 2017:

Johannes presented at Cosyne on Linking Normative and Subunit Models of Neural Response

February, 2017:

Paper published in PLoS Computational Biology. Congratulations Priyank!

     Burge J, Jaini P (2017).

     Accuracy Maximization Analysis for sensory-perceptual tasks: Computational improvements, filter robustness,

     and coding advantages for scaled additive noise.

     PLoS Computational Biology, 13(2):e1005281. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005281 [ html | pdf ]

July, 2017:

Paper published in Information Display

     Burge J (2017).

     Accurate image-based estimates of focus error in the human eye and in a smartphone camera.

     Information Display, 33(1): 18-23 [ pdf ]

January, 2017:

Johannes presented on Depth variation, binocular contrast differences, and disparity estimation in natural scenes at the Annual Interdisciplinary Conference in Breckenridge, CO.

January, 2017:

David White joined the lab as a rotation student. Welcome David!

December, 2016:

"Accurate focus error estimation from individual images in the human eye and in a smartphone camera" has been submitted

December, 2016:

Uploaded new code repository for filter learning via Accuracy Maximization Analysis!

See the BurgeLab Github repository: http://github.com/burgelab/AMA

November, 2016:

"Linking normative models of natural tasks and descriptive models of neural response" has been submitted

October, 2016:

Paper published in Journal of Vision

     Burge J, Mccann BC, Geisler WS (2016).

     Estimating 3D tilt from local image cues in natural scenes

     Journal of Vision, 16: 13, 1-25 doi:10.1167/16.13.2 [ html | pdf ]

October, 2016:

Paper published in arXiv

     Green JD, Burge J, Stansberry JA, Meinke B (2016).

     Cameras a Million Miles Apart: Stereoscopic Imaging Potential with the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes

     arXiv:1610.07483 [ html | pdf ]

September, 2016:

Johannes presented on 3D tilt estimation at the PRISM conference just outside of Marburg, Germany

May, 2016:

Seha presented a poster at VSS titled "Human tilt estimation in local patches of natural stereo-images"

May, 2016:

Ben presented a poster at VSS titled "External vs Internal determinants of human speed discrimination with natural images movies"

May, 2016:

Johannes presented a poster at VSS titled "Local cues for half-occlusion detection in stereo-images of natural scenes"

May, 2016:

Presented at special VSS symposium: "Realism or Artifice as an experimental methodology" with Tony Movshon, David Brainard, Roland Fleming, Jenny Read, and Wendy Adams, organized by Peter Scarfe

April, 2016:

Presented at NETI mini-conference at UT Austin on the coding advantages for multiplicative neural noise

April, 2016:

"Accuracy Maximization Analysis: Computational improvements, priors, and coding advantages for scaled additive noise" has been submitted

March, 2016:

"Local image matching to estimate global surface orientation and distance" has been submitted

February, 2016:

Arvind presented a poster at Cosyne titled "Weber's Law for disparity discrimination is predicted by the statistics of natural stereo images"

February, 2016:

Johannes presented a poster at Cosyne on "Optimal estimation of motion-in-depth from stereo natural-image movies"

December, 2015:

Three abstracts submitted to VSS 2016

September, 2015:

Vijay Singh, a Physics PhD from Emory University, has joined the lab as a post-doctoral researcher! He is one of the two inaugural postdocs in the Computational Neuroscience Initiative (CNI) at Penn.

August, 2015:

Two abstracts submitted (and accepted!) to Cosyne 2016

August, 2015:

Paper published in Nature Communications

     Burge J & Geisler WS (2015).

     Optimal speed estimation in natural image movies predicts human performance

     Nature Communications, 6: 7900, 1-11 doi:10.1038/ncomms8900 [ html | pdf ]

August, 2015:

Seha Kim, a Psychology PhD from Rutgers University, has joined the lab a post-doctoral researcher!

July, 2015:

Arvind Iyer, a BioEngineering PhD from USC, has joined the lab a post-doctoral researcher!

July, 2015:

Benjamin Chin, a 1st year graduate student, will do a rotation in the lab for the summer and fall!

June, 2015:

Priyank Jaini, from the Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur, has joined the lab for the summer!

May, 2015:

Presented at VSS on how an ideal observer predicts human speed discrimination w. natural images

May, 2015:

Paper published in Journal of Vision

     Sebastian S, Burge J, Geisler WS (2015).

     Defocus blur discrimination in natural images with natural optics

     Journal of Vision, 15(5):16, 1-17 [ html | pdf ]

March, 2015:

Paper published in Journal of Vision

     Bonnen K, Burge J, Yates J, Pillow JW, Cormack LK (2015).

     Continuous psychophysics: Target-tracking to measure visual sensitivity

     Journal of Vision, 15(3):14, 1-16 [ html | pdf ]

January, 2015:

"Estimating 3D surface orientation in natural scenes from image gradients" has been submitted

November, 2014:

Book chapter published in The Cognitive Neurosciences

     Geisler WS, Burge J, D'Antona AD, Michel MM (2014)

     Characterizing the effects of stimulus and neural variability on perceptual performance

     In Gazzinga & Mangun (Eds.) The Cognitive Neurosciences, 5th Edition. 363-374. Cambridge: MIT Press [ pdf ]

November, 2014:

"Optimal speed estimation in natural image movies predicts human performance" has been submitted

November, 2014:

"Continuous psychophysics: Target-tracking to measure visual sensitivity" has been submitted

October, 2014:

"Defocus blur discrimination in natural images with natural optics" has been submitted

September, 2014:

U.S. Patent granted on method for imaged-based defocus estimation in digital imaging systems

     Application No.:      13/965,758

     Filing Date:              August 13, 2013

     Title:                        Focus Error Estimation in Images

     Reference No.:        5934 US

     File No.:                  93331-001910US-882167

August, 2014:

Three abstracts submitted to the OSA Fall Vision Meeting

July, 2014:

First day in the office at the University of Pennsylvania!

May, 2014:

Presented on estimating 3D surface orientation from image cue gradients at the Vision Sciences Society

April, 2014:

Vijay Singh, a Physics PhD from Emory University, has joined the lab as a post-doctoral researcher! He is one of the two inaugural postdocs in the Computational Neuroscience Initiative (CNI) at Penn.

March, 2014:

UT Austin OTC Tech report profiles algorithm for estimating focus error in cell phone cameras

    See the 'Press' page for a link to the article


Presented on 3D surface tilt estimation from image cue gradients at the CoSyNe annual meeting

February, 2014:

Paper published in Journal of Vision

     Burge J & Geisler WS (2014).

     Optimal disparity estimation in natural stereo-images

     Journal of Vision, 14(2):1, 1-18 [ html | pdf ]

Optimal focus error estimation performance determined for individual images in a popular smart phone.

    See the 'Patents' page for a technical document demonstrating performance

Presented on using natural image movies to determine optimal processing for speed estimation at the Annual Interdisciplinary Conference (AIC) in Jackson Hole, WY

December, 2013:

Patent published on method for optimally estimating focus error in individual images.

Patent Publication No. US-2013-0329122-A1

October, 2013:

Image published in Nature, News & Views article

     "Through the eyes of a mouse" Nature, 502:156-158

     Download article: [pdf] Download original image: [pdf]

September, 2013:

"Characterizing the effects of stimulus and neural variability on perceptual performance", a chapter

for the next edition of the Gazzaniga text book series, has been submitted

August, 2013:

Accepted tenure-track faculty position at the University of Pennsylvania!

Starting date: July 1, 2014

May, 2013:

Paper published in Journal of Neurophysiology

     Scholl B, Burge J & Priebe NJ (2013).

     Binocular integration and disparity selectivity in mouse primary visual cortex

     Journal of Neurophysiology, 109, 3013-3024 [ pdf ]

March, 2013:

Presented on optimal motion estimation in natural image movies at the CoSyNe annual meeting

September, 2012:

"Optimal disparity estimation in natural stereo-images" has been submitted

August, 2012:

"Binocular integration and disparity selectivity in mouse primary visual cortex" has been submitted

June, 2012:

Presented at an inter-disciplinary conference titled "Perception, Representation, and Objectivity: Themes from Tyler Burge" in St. Petersburg, Russia. The conference was centered on my father's

recent book titled "Origins of Objectivity"

February, 2012:

Presented on optimal disparity estimation in natural stereo-images at the CoSyNe annual meeting

January, 2012:

SPIE paper wins the Digital Photography VIII best paper award. Award sponsored by Canon USA, Inc.


Paper published in the Proceedings of the IS&T/SPIE Conference on Electronic Imaging

     Burge J & Geisler WS (2012).

     Optimal defocus estimates from individual images for autofocusing a digital camera.

     Proceedings of the SPIE, 8299, 82990: E1-E12, January: Burlingame, CA [ pdf ]


Presented on optimally estimating focus error for autofocusing a DSLR camera at IS&T/SPIE meeting


Algorithm for estimating focus error covered by The Guardian Observer and Popular Photography

     Autofocus and the importance of 'defocusing'. The Guardian Observer, January 15, 2011

     Study of the human eye could lead to more accurate autofocus technology. Popular Photography, Jan. 20, 2011

November, 2011:

PNAS article covered by Scientific American

     Giving cameras the best autofocus possible, autofocus from the human eye. Scientific American, Nov. 1, 2011

October, 2011:

Paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

     Burge J & Geisler WS (2011).

     Optimal defocus estimation in individual natural images.

     Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108 (40): 16849-16854 [ pdf ]

PNAS article covered by Fast Company, Wired, Science Magazine

     Giving cameras the best autofocus possible, autofocus from the human eye. Fast Company, October 31, 2011

     Psychologists decipher brain's clever autofocus software. Wired.com, October 10, 2011

     Deciphering the brain's autofocus mechanism. Science Magazine, October 7, 2011

September, 2011:

PNAS article covered by Science Daily

     Researchers develop optimal algorithm for determining focus error in eyes and cameras. September 26, 2011

August, 2011:

Uploaded Matlab implementation of new method for dimensionality reduction:

Accuracy Maximization Analysis (AMA)

July, 2011:

Book chapter published in Sensory Cue Integration

     Banks MS, Burge J, & Held R (2011).

     The statistical relationship between depth, visual cues, and human perception.

     In: Sensory Cue Integration (Eds Trommershauser J, Kording KP, Landy M) Oxford University Press

Lecture and one-day workshop on natural scene statistics, statistical methods, and current research at Ludwig Maximilians Universitat in Munich, Germany. Thanks to Paul MacNeilage for having me!

Presented on optimal defocus estimation in model human visual systems at the Imaging Systems and Applications, Optical Society of America conference in Toronto, Canada

April, 2011:

Article published in Journal of Vision

     Cooper EA, Burge J, Banks MS (2011).

     The vertical horopter is not adaptable but it may be adaptive.

     Journal of Vision, 11(3) 20: 1-19. [ pdf ]

February, 2011:

Provisional Patent filed on method for imaged-based optimal defocus estimation in digital imaging systems (Provisional Patent 22084-P069)

October, 2017:

Paper published in Journal of Vision. Congratulations Priyank!

     Jaini P, Burge J (2017). 


     Linking normative models of natural tasks with descriptive models of neural response

     Journal of Vision, 17(12):16, 1-26 [ html | pdf ]

March, 2018:

Paper published in eLife. Congratulations Seha!

     Kim S, Burge J (2018). 


     The lawful imprecision of human surface tilt estimation in natural scenes.

     eLife, 7:e31148, doi:https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.31448 [ html | pdf ]

March, 2018:

Johannes presented at the University of Ulm in Germany!

April, 2018:

Johannes and the Natural Vision Lab awarded an NIH-funded R01 award for 5 years with support from the National Eye Institute and the Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research!

January, 2018:

Johannes awarded an NSF Career Award! (declined due to overlap with the R01)

June, 2018:

Paper published in Journal of Vision. Congratulations Arvind!

     Iyer AV, Burge J (2018). 


     Depth variation and stereo processing tasks in natural scenes.


     Journal of Vision, 18(6):4, 1-22 [ html | pdf ]

June, 2018:

Paper posted on bioRxiv. Congratulations Vijay!

     Singh V, Cottaris NP, Heasly BS, Brainard DH, Burge J (2018). 


     Computational luminance constancy from naturalistic images.

     bioRxiv, doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/358671 [ html | pdf ]

August, 2018:

Paper posted on bioRxiv. Congratulations Arvind!

     Iyer AV, Burge J (2018). 


     Model neuron response statistics to natural images.

     bioRxiv, doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/387183  [ html | pdf ]

December, 2018:

Paper published in Journal of Vision. Congratulations Vijay!

     Singh V, Cottaris NP, Heasly BS, Brainard DH, Burge J (2018). 


     Computational luminance constancy from naturalistic images.

     Journal of Vision, 18(13): 19, doi:10.1167/18.13.19  [ html | pdf ]

March, 2019:

Major new paper posted on bioRxiv! Now published in Current Biology [ html | pdf ]

     Burge J, Rodriguez-Lopez V, Dorronsoro C (2019).

     Monovision and the misperception of motion.

     bioRxiv, doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/591560

January, 2019:

February, 2019:

NIH-funded postdoctoral position available immediately

Please see the lab Contact page for details about how to apply

United States provisional patent application filed, kicking off a new collaboration

with Carlos Dorronsoro & Victor Rodriguez! See the Patents page for more details.

     Burge J, Rodriguez-Lopez V, Dorronsoro C.

     Anti-Pulfrich monovision ophthalmic corrections.

     U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/799,468. Filing date: January 31, 2019.

March, 2019:

Johannes presented at the Spanish Institute of Optics in Madrid!

February, 2019:

Johannes presented at the Annual Interdisciplinary Conference in Jackson Hole!

April, 2019:

Another big paper posted on bioRxiv. Congratulations Ben!

     Chin BM & Burge J (2019).

     Predicting the partition of behavioral variability in speed perception with naturalistic images.

     bioRxiv, doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/601161 [ html | pdf ]

May, 2019:

May, 2019:

Johannes presented at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology in Boston

The BurgeLab presented at the Vision Sciences Society meeting St. Pete Beach, Florida.

The lab had two talks (Taka & Johannes) and three posters (Ben, Dave, and Seha).

Everyone did a beautiful job.

July, 2019:

Johannes presented at Princeton University in New Jersey

July, 2019:

Paper published in Current Biology with a nice Dispatch highlighting our work.

     Burge J, Rodriguez-Lopez V, Dorronsoro C (2019).

     Monovision and the misperception of motion.

     Current Biology, 29, 2586-2592 [ html1 | | html2 | pdf ]


          Dispatch:

           Read JCA (2019).

           Visual Perception: Monovision can bias the apparent depth of moving objects

           Current Biology, 29, R738-R761 [ html | pdf ]


          Faculty of 1000 (F1000 Prime) entry by Pascal Mamassian: [ link ]

August, 2019:

Scientific American published a nice blog post on our recent Current Biology paper

July, 2019:

The Philadelphia Inquirer published an article highlighting our Current Biology paper.

August, 2019:

The Chicago Tribune ran the Philadelphia Inquirer piece on our Current Biology paper

October, 2019:

Scientific American ran a News article in their print edition on our Current Biology paper

December, 2019:

New paper submitted and posted on bioRxiv.

     Kim S & Burge J (2019).

     Natural scene statistics predict how humans pool information across space in surface tilt estimation

     bioRxiv, doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/601161 [ html | pdf ]

November, 2019:

Paper published in Journal of Vision.

     Iyer AV & Burge J (2019).

     The statistics of how natural images drive the responses of neurons

     Journal of Vision, 19(13): 4, doi: https://doi.org/10.1167/19.13.4. [ html | pdf ]

November, 2019:

Johannes presented at University of Minnesota in Minneapolis

January, 2020:

Paper published in Journal of Neuroscience. Congratulations Ben!

     Chin BM & Burge J (2020).

     Predicting the partition of behavioral variability in speed perception with naturalistic images

     Journal of Neuroscience, 40(4), 864-879 [ html | pdf ]

January, 2020:

Johannes presented a keynote lecture at the British Machine

Vision Association Technical Meeting in London, England

March, 2020:

New paper w. Emily Cooper now posted on bioRxiv. Congratulations David and Zeynap!

     Basgoze Z, White DN, Burge J, Cooper EA (2020).

     Natural image statistics at depth edges modulate perceptual stability

     bioRxiv, doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.05.026724 [ html | pdf ]

April, 2020:

New paper posted on bioRxiv w. Victor Rodriguez-Lopez and Carlos Dorronsoro.

     Rodriguez-Lopez V, Dorronsoro C, Burge J (2020).

     Contact lenses can cause the reverse Pulfrich effect and anti-Pulfrich monovision corrections can eliminate it.

     bioRxiv, doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.05.026534 [ html | pdf ]

May, 2020

Medscape wrote up a nice article on our work showing that contact lenses, the most common monovision delivery system, can both cause large misperceptions of depth and motion and be used to eliminate them with anti-Pulfrich monovision corrections. For more details, please see our bioRxiv paper.

June, 2020

New paper published in PLoS Computational Biology. Congratulations Seha!

     Kim S & Burge J (2020).

     Natural scene statistics predict how humans pool information across space in surface tilt estimation

     PLoS Computational Biology, 16 (6), e1007947 [ html | pdf ]

August, 2020

New paper posted on the exquisite temporal sensitivity of continuous target-tracking psychophysics

     Burge J & Cormack LK (2020).

     Target tracking reveals the time course of visual processing with millisecond-scale precision

     bioRxiv, 238642, 1-27. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.238642 [ html | pdf ]

August, 2020

New paper published on natural scene statistics and perceptual stability (i.e. binocular anti-rivalry)

     Basgoze Z, White DN, Burge J, Cooper EA (2020)

     Natural statistics of depth edges modulate perceptual stability

     Journal of Vision, 20(8): 10, 1-21, doi: https://doi.org/10.1167/jov.20.8.10 [ html | pdf ]

September, 2020

Review paper published at Annual Review of Vision Science

     Burge J (2020).

     Image-computable ideal observers for tasks with natural stimuli.

     Annual Review of Vision Science, 6: 491-517 [ html | ePrint pdf ]

September, 2020:

Paper published showing that monovision contact lenses can both cause and eliminate motion illusions

     Rodriguez-Lopez V, Dorronsoro C, Burge J (2020).

     Contact lenses, the reverse Pulfrich effect, and anti-Pulfrich monovision corrections

     Nature Scientific Reports, 10:16086, 1-16. [ html | pdf ]

Diversity Statement

We treat all people with dignity and respect because it is the right thing to do. We work to promote and maintain a diverse and inclusive environment.  We welcome individuals from all backgrounds. We appreciate the talents of each individual. And we work collectively to shore up one another's weaknesses as we strive for scientific excellence.

February, 2021

March, 2021

Paper submitted on the estimation of surface distance and 3D orientation from binocular information

     Oluk C, Bonnen K, Burge J, Cormack LK, Geisler WS (2021).

     Stereo slant discrimination of planar 3D surfaces: Standard vs. planar cross-correlation

     bioRxiv, 434881, 1-34. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.03.11.434881 [ html | pdf ]

Criticism submitted on an issue of interest to psychology and philosophy: the role of perspective in vision. Written in effort to clarify theory & method in the science. (Bonus: 1st paper co-authored with my father!)

     Burge J, Burge T (under review).

     Perspectival shape is a thing, but not a thing that is perceived.


        Submitted as a comment on:

        Morales, Bax, Firestone (2020). Sustained representation of perspectival shape. PNAS, 117(26), 14873-14882

June, 2021

Paper submitted on human lightness constancy in naturalistic scenes.

     Singh V, Burge J, Brainard DH (2021).

     Equivalent noise characterization of human lightness constancy

     bioRxiv, 447171, 1-32. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.06.04.447171 [ html | pdf ]

July, 2021

Johannes promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure, effective July 1, 2021!

February, 2022

Paper posted on a new kind of misperception of motion in depth due to interocular differences in the length of time over which visual signals are integrated. Congratulations Ben!

     Chin BM, Burge J (2022).

     Perceptual consequences of interocular imbalances in temporal integration

     bioRxiv, 480712, 1-27. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.02.16.480712 [ html | pdf ]

November, 2021

Johannes introduced Bill Geisler as the 2020 Tillyer Award Winner at the Optica (formerly known as Optical Society of America) Fall Vision Meeting. The text of the introduction is here.

August, 2021

Anthony LoPrete, a first year bioengineering graduate student, joined the lab. Welcome Anthony!

February, 2022

A pre-publication copy of 'Shape, perspective, and what is and is not perceived', soon to appear in Psychological Review, is now posted on psyArXiv. The article makes a number of pointed criticisms of Morales et al. (2020), 'Sustained representation of perspectival shape' PNAS. The article also makes multiple positive contributions. These include discussion of: i) the nature of explanation in perception science, ii) the 'dual character' of visual perception, iii) the distinctions between neural and perceptual representation, and iv) the importance of clearly distinguishing between sensation, perception, and conscious awarenesses associated with sensation and/or perception.

     Burge J, Burge T (in press). Shape, perspective, and what is and is not perceived. Psychological Review.

     Pre-publication copy at: PsyArXiv, February 25. doi:10.1037/rev0000363 [ html | pdf | osf ]

March, 2022

Daniel Herrera (@dherrera1911) will be joining the lab as a postdoc in June, 2022. See his google scholar page for information on his publishing history. We are very much looking forward to his arrival.

March, 2022

Ben Chin (@perceptchin) successfully defended his PhD! Congratulations!

April, 2022

Paper published on lightness constancy in naturalistic scenes

     Singh V, Burge J, Brainard DM (2022).

     Equivalent noise characterization of human lightness constancy

     Journal of Vision, 22(5): 2, 1-26. [ html | pdf ]

May, 2022

Paper published in Psychological Review on the role of perspective (point-of-view) in visual perception. The article--joint work with my father, Prof. of Philosophy at UCLA--is a position piece in the form of a criticism on an issue of long-standing interest in psychology, philosophy, and the world of art. We wrote it to clarify method & theory in the science. You can also read about some of the issues in this Twitter thread.

     Burge J, Burge T (2022). Shape, perspective, and what is and is not perceived:

     Comment on Morales, Bax, and Firestone (2020). Psychological Review. [ html | pdf | osf ]


        Original paper: Morales, Bax, Firestone (2020). Sustained representation of perspectival shape.

        PNAS, 117(26), 14873-14882 [ html ]

April, 2022

Paper published human and ideal stereo-based 3D surface orientation estimation & discrimination

     Oluk C, Bonnen K, Burge J, Cormack LK, Geisler WS (2022)

     Stereo slant discrimination of planar surfaces: Frontoparallel versus planar matching

     Journal of Vision, 22(5): 6, 1-26. [ html | pdf ]

July, 2022

June, 2022

Daniel Herrera (@dherrera1911) joined the lab starting June 1st. See his google scholar page for information on his publishing history. He has already hit the ground running. We are all looking forward to working with him.

Johannes is teaching at the Cold Spring Harbor Summer Course on vision & computational neuroscience, a great opportunity for talented up-and-coming scientists to learn the latest tools and findings in the field.

November, 2022

Paper published on the relationship between motion-in-depth illusions, the dynamics of temporal processing in the two eyes, and the 'Geometric effect' in stereo-based surface orientation perception

     Chin BM, Burge J (2022).

     Perceptual consequences of interocular differences in the duration of temporal integration

     Journal of Vision, 22(12):12, 1-17. doi: https://doi.org/10.1167/jov.22.12.12 [ html | pdf ]

October, 2022

Johannes guest lectured on disparity estimation w natural signals in a grad seminar

at NYU being led by Bas Rokers. I'll be back to do it again in November. Thanks Bas!

November, 2022

Johannes gave a seminar in the Psych Department at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Thanks to Ari Rosenberg for having me out.

November, 2022

Johannes guest lectured in Bas Rokers' grad seminar at NYU on motion-in-depth illusions and how they can be used to measure the temporal characteristics of visual processing with millisecond-scale precision

December, 2022

Conference paper published on computational processing mechanisms that optimize 3D speed and 3D direction estimation with stereo natural image movies. Congrats Daniel!

     Herrera-Esposito D, Burge J (2022).

     Image-computable Bayesian model for 3D motion estimation with natural stimuli explains human bias

     Shared Visual Representations in Human and Machine Intelligence Workshop @ NeurIPS. New Orleans. [ html | pdf ]

February, 2023

Johannes presented an invited talk in a special session at the Annual Interdisciplinary Conference (AIC) in Jackson, WY. A wonderful event with a great lineup of speakers. Thanks Fulvio for the invitation!

March, 2023

Johannes gave a seminar to the York University vision group in Toronto, a wonderful collection of creative

researchers that are nice people to boot. Thanks James, Laurie, Richard, Kevin, and Rob for great visit!

Daniel presented his work on image-computable ideal observers for motion-in-depth estimation from natural images and Johannes attended the NETI workshop in Austin TX

September, 2023

Callista and Ben presented talks, Daniel a poster, and Johannes organized a symposim on "Continuous psychophysics" (and presented a talk) with Kate Bonnen at  VSS in St. Petersburg, FL.

Paper posted on how light-level changes the severity of the reverse Pulfrich effect.

     Rodriguez-Lopez V, Chin BM, Burge J (2023).

     The impact of overall light-level on the reverse Pulfrich effect

     bioRxiv, 559782, 1-17. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.09.27.559782 [ html | pdf ]

May, 2023

September, 2023

Paper posted showing that processing delays are milliseconds shorter in the peripheral visual field, that these tiny temporal differences can have large perceptual effects, and that eccentricity-dependent changes in retinal physiology tightly accounts for the data.

     Burge J & Dyer CM (2023).

     Eccentricity strongly modulates visual processing delays

     bioRxiv, 559991, 1-18. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.09.30.559991 [ html | pdf ]

September, 2023

Thomas Hou, a masters student in applied mathematics and computational science, joined the lab!

December, 2023

Two new articles submitted with my father, Tyler Burge, on issues brought to the fore by recent replies to our joint 2023 article titled 'Shape, perspective, and what is and what is not perceived'.

      Article 1: 'Perspective in Vision: Method and Explanation in Perceptual Psychology'

         Article 2: 'Representation, Frameworks, and Perspective on Shape'

Both articles tackle big issues of current interest in perceptual psychology including but not limited to methodology, causal explanation, scientific reasoning, psychologically-distincitve representation, and the role of perspective in vision. Please have a look once they are publically available.

March, 2024

Paper posted by Daniel Herrera on the optimal computations for estimating motion-in-depth from natural image movies. The paper contains a beautiful set of results including, but not limited to, the spontaneous emergence of two distinct receptive field populations with functional specializations for estimating the two primary binocular cues to 3D motion: interocular velocity difference signals (IOVD)--best at fast speeds--, and changing disparity over time signals (CDOT)--best at slow speeds.

     Herrera-Esposito D & Burge J (2024).

     Optimal motion-in-depth estimation from natural image movies

     bioRxiv, 585059, 1-30. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.03.14.585059 [ html | pdf ]

March, 2024

Paper by Michael Barnett and Benjamin Chin posted on temporal processing of color signals. The paper compares detection thresholds and a continuous-psychophysics-based temporal measure of target tracking performance, and shows that (almost) identical computations of equivalent contrast underlie performance in both tasks. Congrats Michael and Ben!

     Barnett MA, Chin BM, Aguirre GK, Burge J, Brainard DH (submitted). “Temporal dynamics of color processing

     measured using a continuous tracking task”. Preprint posted at: bioRxiv, 582975, 1-40. doi:    

     https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.03.01.582975 [ html | pdf ]

March, 2024

Paper posted on human stereo-depth discrimination in natural scenes. The research makes use of a high-fidelity stereo-image database of natural scenes with pixel-by-pixel laser-based distance data, two enormous double-pass experiments utilizing a within-subjects design, and a novel analytical method to determine the distinct sources of uncertainty in natural images and scenes that limit the percision of human stereo-depth perception in natural viewing. Congratulations David!

     White DN & Burge J (2024).

     How distinct sources of nuisance variability in natural images and scenes limit human stereopsis

     bioRxiv, 582383, 1-52. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.02.27.582383 [ html | pdf ]

May, 2024

Paper published showing that millisecond-scale differences in visual processing can be measured, and are thus preserved, in the movement dynamics of hand. A running-based analogy: It is as if one could delay the start time of one of two marathon runners by three seconds, and reliably recover that discrepancy at the race's end despite the external and internal sources of noise affecting the runners.

     Burge J & Cormack LK (2024). Continuous psychophysics shows that millisecond-scale visual processing

     delays are faithfully preserved in movement dynamics. Journal of Vision, 24(5):4, 1-23.

     doi: https://doi.org/10.1167/jov.24.5.4 [ html | pdf ]


June, 2024

Article, joint with Kate Bonnen, titled 'Continuous psychophysics: Past, present, future' submitted to Trends in Cognitive Sciences. It describes the basics of the approach (see Bonnen et al. 2015 or Burge & Cormack, 2024), discusses the strengths and weaknesses relative to traditional forced-choice psychophysics, reviews recent findings, and looks ahead to future challenges and opportunities.

August, 2024

New paper posted. It demonstrates that feature-specific (or tuned) normalization improves stimulus encoding for stereo-depth perception. We derive and apply new expressions for the Fisher information about binocular disparity in receptive field population responses to natural scenes. And we quantify the advantage of tuned over un-tuned normalization. The analysis establishes a new functional role for tuned divisive normalization in latent variable encoding / decoding in natural scenes. Congrats Long!

     Ni L & Burge J (2024).

     Feature-specific divisive normalization improves natural image encoding for depth perception

     bioRxiv, 582383, 1-52. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.02.27.582383 [ html | pdf ]