MMM & MAC - MARCS Monday Meeting and MARCS Afternoon Colloquium 02 Mar 2020

Join us to hear from our guest speaker Professor Markus Lappe from the University of Münster who will present on the visual ecology of motion and Associate Professor of Digital Humanities, Rachel Hendery who will present on mapping and modelling the pre-history of the Coral Sea interaction sphere.

PROGRAM

12pm - MARCS Monday Meeting

Topic: Mapping and modelling the pre-history of the Coral Sea interaction sphere
Speaker: Associate Professor of Digital Humanities, Rachel Hendery

In this presentation I will report on research I am carrying out as part of a larger team of   linguists, anthropologists, archaeologists and computational researchers in the ARC Project: "Waves of Words: Mapping and Modelling Australia's Pacific Past". I will showcase a digital research platform we have developed for collating and connecting the different kinds of project data we are dealing with (anthropological, linguistic, archaeological), as well as some initial results from the project.  Earlier work on the pre-colonial connection between Australia and the Asia-Pacific region has discovered a number of intriguing pieces of evidence across various disciplines, but until we could bring these together, they remained merely suggestive. By layering the different kinds of data, hotspots of change and interaction in the region become more apparent (for example the Coral Sea Interaction Sphere). Simulations the team has carried out help us better determine the feasibility of previous proposals for routes of Australia/Asia-Pacific interaction.

12.40pm – Lunch

1pm – MARCS Afternoon Colloquium

Topic: Visual Ecology of Motion
Speaker: Professor Markus Lappe, University of Münster, Germany

Abstract:
My talk will be about the two primary ecological sources of retinal motion: optic flow and biological motion. I will show that they use distinct computational mechanisms suggesting two separate brain pathways, but that they share some conceptual principles. I will then look at ecologically relevant situations combining both types of motion, a situation that has seldom been investigated. Do they inflict problems onto each other by violating respective computational prerequisites? Are there synergies or cross talk? I present experiments investigating self-motion perception when a point-light walker is encountered in isolation or when heading through a crowd.​

Biography:
Professor Markus Lappe is Head of the Institute for Psychology at the University of Münster. His research focuses on the interaction of vision with action namely how our visual system controls spatial navigation and exploration, how eye movements and attention contribute to visual perception, and how we perceive actions of others. To approach these issues his lab combines behavioural and physiological experiments with computational modeling. Professor Lappe believes that a true understanding of a cognitive function is equivalent to being able to formulate a quantitative model.

Thank you for your continued attendance.

MARCS staff and students are reminded that all meetings and workshops have an important role in building and maintaining the sense of community which is central to the success of MARCS as a cooperative and energetic research institute.  Your attendance is both welcomed and expected.

The zoom ID is: 627 146 998. Link to zoom https://uws.zoom.us/j/627146998