VSIB2009

Visual Search and Attention in Bumblebees

Coordinatore	QUEEN MARY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON    more  Organization address address: 327 MILE END ROAD city: LONDON postcode: E1 4NS contact info Titolo: Prof. Nome: Lars Cognome: Chittka Email: send email Telefono: +44 20 7882 3043 Fax: +44 20 8983 0973
Nazionalità Coordinatore	United Kingdom [UK]
Totale costo	173˙240 €
EC contributo	173˙240 €
Programma	FP7-PEOPLE Specific programme "People" implementing the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007 to 2013)
Code Call	FP7-PEOPLE-2009-IIF
Funding Scheme	MC-IIF
Anno di inizio	2011
Periodo (anno-mese-giorno)	2011-09-10   -   2013-09-09

 Partecipanti

#	participant	country	role	EC contrib. [€]
1	QUEEN MARY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON  Organization address address: 327 MILE END ROAD city: LONDON postcode: E1 4NS contact info Titolo: Prof. Nome: Lars Cognome: Chittka Email: send email Telefono: +44 20 7882 3043 Fax: +44 20 8983 0973	UK (LONDON)	coordinator	173˙240.80

Mappa

 Word cloud

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'Visual search is a common task in our everyday life. We search for our child in a crowd at school, or a chocolate bar out of several different brands at the supermarket. The ease of the search depends on how distinguishable the target is from the background or how different it is from other surrounding objects. Attention can improve our search if drawn to the vicinity of the target. Visual search, attention, and the neuronal circuitry underlying these processes are currently a very dynamic field in human psychophysics. But to understand the minimum neuronal hardware necessary to solve such tasks, we here turn to an animal that is rapidly becoming a model for analysing how simple nervous systems solve complex cognitive tasks: the bumblebee. Interestingly, the common tests run by psychologists often seem more appropriate to a bee's world than to a human's. Commonly, subjects are asked to search a display for one or several defined targets (e.g. a small yellow square). The targets are commonly mixed with other stimuli (distractors), which differ from those the subject is asked to search for. Targets may differ from distractors in one stimulus dimension only (such as color), or they may differ in several dimensions (such as color and shape). Performance of subjects is evaluated in terms of reaction time and accuracy, and in terms of individual strategy used to optimize the speed-accuracy tradeoff. We will use a novel technique, the virtual bee meadow, to ask a range of questions dealing with visual search and attention in bumblebees. How do searches vary if the targets and distractors differ in more than one dimension? How does attention affect the perception of 'irrelevant’ details? How do bees cope with multiple visual targets? Is attention more influenced by the nature of the stimuli or by mental processes in the bee's brain?'

Introduzione (Teaser)

From looking for a particular brand of cereal in a supermarket to finding a child in a crowd, visual search is an integral part of our lives. A study on bumble bees is providing an insight into this process that lies at the core of survival.