Zhong-Lin Lu, Ph.D.

Telephone: (213) 740-2282

Email: Zhong-Lin

My Ph.D. is in physics. Through my specialization in low-temperature physics, I became involved in a particular application: the development of an extremely sensitive device for recording and precisely localizing human brain activity through measurements of the magnetic fields it generates outside the scalp. Under the supervision of Sam Williamson (a physicist) and Lloyd Kaufman (an experimental psychologist) I used an array of superconductive sensors (SQUID) to study the habituation of human auditory primary and association cortex. I found that the time constant of the psychophysical measured memory for the loudness of a sound correlates exactly with the habituation time constant of the primary auditory cortex. I also studied the human occipital alpha rhythm: We found evidence it arises from a parade of neural excitations at different locations that individually grow and subside in strength in about half a second.

Having strayed this far into psychophysics in the course of my thesis, I decided to do a post-doc with George Sperling to seriously study attention and visual perception, and to learn how to apply the quantitative and theoretical methods I learned in physics to the study of brain processes. In 1996, I joined the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, as an assistant professor with appointment in Psychology and Neural, Informational and Behavioral Sciences. At USC, I established a psychophysics laboratory. I am also collaborating with people in brain imaging to coordinate with the psychophysics. The following list covers the major research topics I have been and/or am still working on:

1. Attention: Is there a feature-based attention mechanism? What are the limitations of the attentive processes? How does selective attention select? And what are the mechanisms attention affects perceptual/cognitive processes?
2. Perceptual Learning: What are the mechanisms of perceptual learning?
3. Motion Perception: What is the functional architecture of human visual motion perception? What are the contrast-gain control mechanisms for various motion systems? How do high level cognitive processes influence motion perception? How to demonstrate that different motion systems are supported by different neural substrates? What are the mechanisms for velocity perception?
4. Texture/Pattern Recognition: What is the dimensionality of texture space? What are the fundamental texture mechanisms and their interactions? How to characterize the internal representation of visual patterns?
5. Visual Neural Network: How can a neural network, without guidance, acquire knowledge of the visual environment, and more generally, of any environmental regularities? Can we characterize the evolution of the visual system with reiteration of one single principle: structure discovering at various hierarchical levels?
6. Brain Imaging: What are the brain areas associated with different motion systems? How much information can we extract from brain imaging? How can we read people抯 mind from their brain wave patterns?

Some of these questions have been answered in my publications; Some, and many others, are still under intensive investigation. To understand how the brain works, I believe we need to build models that are sufficiently computational (like the three-motion-systems model) that the actual computations can be represented in a computer program or mathematical theory. With such models, the search for neurophysiological correlates will be most fruitful. Psychophysical experiments, physiological investigation, and mathematical plus computational modeling are all essential ingredients in understanding how the mind and brain operate.

Xiangrui Li, Ph.D. Department of Psychology

Matriculated: May 2005

Telephone: 213-741-0732

Email: xiangrul@usc.edu

Website:

Research Interest:

Changbing Huang, Ph.D. Department of Psychology

Matriculated: January  2007

Telephone: (213) 740-2269

Email: Changbing

Website:

Research Interest: I am currently focused on the computational mechanisms underlying perceptual

learning.  I am also very much interested in the physiological/psychophysical correlates of amblyopia,

possible non-invasive treatments and the issue of brain plasticity that reflected by such processes.

Gui Xue, Ph.D.  Department of Psychology

Matriculated: March  2007

Telephone:

Email:  

Website: http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~gxue/index.html

Research Interest: My research Interests include fMRI study of economic decision making, cognitive control on 

learning, memory and language, language processing, artifical language learning and bilingualism, and neural basis of 

individual differences.

Shan Luo Brain & Cognitive Sciences - Department of Psychology

Matriculated: August  2007

Telephone: (213) 740-2269

Email:  shanluo@usc.edu

Website:

Research Interest:

Carlos Cabrera - Neuroscience Graduate Program

Matriculated: August, 2002

Telephone: (213) 740-2269

Email: Carlos

Website:

Research Interest: My research uses psychophysical procedures to study limitations for humans in signal detection/discrimination, how we improve in visual tasks, and what these findings tell us with regard to the functional architecture mediating vision.  My research interest also include neural visual deficits such as amblyopia.  Proper evaluation of these visual deficits not only helps us understand how we can improve loss of visual function, but also suggests mechanisms underlying normal vision.

Jiajuan "Jan" Liu - Neuroscience Graduate Program

Matriculated: November 2004

Telephone: (213) 740-2269

Email: Jan

Website:

Research Interest: I'm still finding my research interest...but in general, I'm interested in everything about the brain!! :)

Jongsoo Baek - Psychology

Matriculated: August 2005

Telephone: (213) 740-2269

Email:

Website:

Research Interest:

Wilson Chu, Ph.D.

graduated: August  2007

Currently at: University of California, Irvine

Email: Wilson

Website: Link

Research Interest: My research interest extends into the areas of computational, psychophysical, & physiological basis of perceptual learning, attention and visual motion.  I am also very much interested in the neurophysicological correlates of sensory processes.

Simon. Jeon, Ph.D.

Graduated: Summer 2007

Will be: McMaster University

                                                      :

Website:

Phone No.

Luis A. Lesmes, Ph.D.

Graduated: Summer 2004

Currently at: Vision Center Laboratory (VCL-A)

The Salk Institute for Biological Studies - La Jolla, CA

Email:

Website:

Phone No.

James Neuse, Ph.D.

Graduated: Summer 2004

Currently at:

Department of Psychology

University of Southern California - Los Angeles

Department of Psychology

Loyola Marymount University - Los Angeles, CA

Email:

Website:

Phone No.

Debbie Dao, M.A.

Graduated: Summer 2004

Currently at: University of Rochester Medical Center

Rochester, NY

Email:

Website:

Phone No.

Anne Sperling, Ph.D.

Graduated: Spring 2004

Currently at: Department of Neurology

Georgetown University Medical Center - Washington D.C.

Email: Anne

Website: http://gumc.georgetown.edu/departments/neurology/friedman/anne.html

Phone No. (202) 687-1767