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Hi all- I am so psyched to see that some are finding the videos interesting! Do send comments if you have them. cheers, Nancy

fermienrico 8y ago
Nancy, one thing I love about your style is that once in a while you'll stop amidst the lecture and teach about the scientific method, critical thinking, being humble and open-minded in your findings - the whole enterprise of science. It is very inspiring. Of course, the content is insanely interesting. I am hooked like the first episode of Breaking Bad.
adyavanapalli 8y ago
> I am so psyched... Heh, I see what you did there XD
fhe 8y ago
I love the way you opened the course with a personal story.
drakonka 8y ago
Oh man I'm watching the first video and am already hooked, thank you so much for this.
icc97 8y ago
Personally I love the way you describe the brain in the simplest terms possible. You're describing what has the potential to be a very scary hard to learn topic in the simplest terms possible. I'd liken this to how Andrew Ng manages to explain ML/DL in a very calm simple manner. So often lecturers hide behind terminology to make a topic seem more impressive / complex. So thank you. Plus great to see that you're on here too!
sillysaurus3 8y ago
Hey, I just wanted to say that the first video was one of the best introductions to a new topic that I've ever seen. Thanks so much for these.
proxygeek 8y ago
I am about 4 hours in and still into it! Thank you for sharing the lectures. Just finished the series on Face Recognition. I was wondering if the fusiform face area (FFA) get activated while thinking of someone's face instead of actually looking at one? Might also be interesting to explore the memory of faces in persons with prosopagnosia? Haven't actuallly googled for these yet. Will do so in a bit.. after the next series of lectures may be.
- nancykanwisher 8y ago
  Thank you! It means so much to me that some people are appreciating these lectures. I knocked myself out all spring preparing this course, and it was quite a gut punch to read my course evaluations a few days ago, which ere pretty negative. I was so dispirited, I was actually thinking of stopping posting the lectures, but if you guys/gals are into it, that is awesome,I will keep at it! To answer your question: yes we showed long ago that if you close your eyes and imagine a face you turn on the face area, and if you imagine a place you turn on the place area - here is the article: http://web.mit.edu/bcs/nklab/media/pdfs/OCravenKanwisherJOCN00.pdf http://web.mit.edu/bcs/nklab/media/pdfs/OCravenKanwisherJOCN... We and others have shown that in developmental prosopagnosia, the deficit is not just in remembering faces, but also in perceiving them. Nancy
  - manoj_venkat92 8y ago
    PLEASE DON'T STOP POSTING THEM! PRETTY PLEASE? At least, future generations may appreciate it, right?! :P
  - sriram_malhar 8y ago
    What? Negative reviews? Why would anyone do that? Get fMRIs of their brains. That lump of entitlement is pressing down on important parts of the brain.
  - martinpw 8y ago
    These lectures are fantastic, please don't stop! You mentioned David Marr's book. Given its age, I assume some parts have stood the test of time better than others - would you recommend reading it all or would you focus just on the first part you mentioned in the lecture? And are there other books you would recommend? (I haven't got very far though the lectures yet so apologies if you mention some later on.)
manoj_venkat92 8y ago
Hey Nancy, thanks for doing the lectures. Coolest Online course I ever came across/studied. Love from India.
- manoj_venkat92 8y ago
  Hey,I'm at lecture 2.6,you're talking about the recognition of faces and it's relationship with the holistic image view/image processing. So, can I go ahead and abstract out the ability of mind being discussed? Basically, given a category, this vision processing module in brain is processing different features of the image(here feature in the machine learning sense). And these categories can be hierarchical. Like faces, humans, creatures, this can be a hierarchy that the brain may be referring to when it is trying to identify a face and switches to the mode where it needs a holistic image view rather than some isolated parts of brain. I understand that imagining how this happens biologically(physiologically) is hard for me. My question is, am I correct in the above inference? I want to suggest an experiment now :D :P
  - nancykanwisher 8y ago
    Sounds like you got it, more or less. Current views of how object recognition works in the brain are a lot like current deep net models of object recognition (e.g. Alexnet and beyond): a heirarchical series of processing steps in which units at successive processing stages get more selective for specific things, and more invariant to image variation (size, position, lighting, etc). One view of holistic face perception is that it is just the natural consequence of having units tuned to whole faces (or to large portions of the face). But why this should be implemented in humans as a specific category-selective patch of the brain is an open and fascinating question, that I am now hopeful network modeling may inform.
    - ghaff 8y ago
      Interesting. In the past, I've read researchers commenting that "neural networks" was mostly unfortunate terminology because it implied the similarities between the physical patterns of the brain and connections between nodes in a neural network were a surface similarity that probably didn't offer insights into how the brain really worked. But you're saying that there may be more similarity than we thought. I remember way back when there was some evidence of things like horizontal- and vertical-feature detection. It sounds as if there is still some evidence of this but perhaps more plastic than was once imagined.
vadansky 8y ago
Thanks for the videos! I took intermediate and advanced physiology, so this is more of a refresher. Is there videos for the more advanced courses available too?
- nancykanwisher 8y ago
  This is not a course per se, but there are a lot of good, cutting edge videos by major players in the field here: https://cbmm.mit.edu/videos https://cbmm.mit.edu/videos
akjetma 8y ago
Just wanted to say thanks--I'm really enjoying these videos!
- nancykanwisher 8y ago
  So glad to hear it, thank you. Do let me know if you encounter bits that are not clear or if you see ways the lectures could be improved. BTW the lectures were all originally 1 hour and 25 minutes - I just broke them into pieces because everyone tells me that is what web viewers like. Is that working for you guys, or would you prefer to watch a whole 1.5 hour lecture not broken into bits?
  - TheAdamAndChe 8y ago
    I don't think pieces are necessarily what web viewers like, but it increases the potential virality of the video by breaking a broad lecture into tweetable, sharable soundbites, thus videos of this format become the de facto web video format. I personally prefer long lectures, but if social media growth is what you are after, I'd keep it as it is.
  - THE_PUN_STOPS 8y ago
    Perhaps it is my internet addled reward circuits, but I personally prefer the shorter videos for learning because it helps me compartmentalize and break down topics for understanding.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - manoj_venkat92 8y ago
    Yes, the pieces are just perfect. Any good lecture series on major sites like Coursera have it that way. 1.5 hour lecture give me a good sleep.
sizzle 8y ago
Awesome lectures! Did cogsci undergrad many years ago. If you had to estimate how much of the brain the field of neuroscience truly understands, what would that percentage be around? I remember being shocked how little we actually know about the brain and wonder if we can unlock most of its secrets in our lifetimes. Thanks for being a part of the HN community :)
- nancykanwisher 8y ago
  It depends what you mean by "understand" :-) On many interpretations, we understand none of it!
eli_gottlieb 8y ago
Hi Nancy, Any chance you've got material covering motor systems instead of the visual sensory systems?
- nancykanwisher 8y ago
  Sorry, I did not cover the motor system in the course.
  - eli_gottlieb 8y ago
    Ah well, thanks. I'm still gonna enjoy the perception material!
dempseye 8y ago
I've watched the first two videos. You're an engaging lecturer and this is a fascinating subject. Thanks for putting them online. I have an MA in philosophy and your friendly dig at philosophers' penchant for stuff like "undetached rabbit parts" made me lol.
Roybot 8y ago
Thanks for all of this Nancy. I'm just a software engineer but I find the connection between technology and the brain intriguing. The brain seems incredibly complex but I'm glad we have content like yours to at least guide us in understanding it.

fermienrico 8y ago

Nancy, one thing I love about your style is that once in a while you'll stop amidst the lecture and teach about the scientific method, critical thinking, being humble and open-minded in your findings - the whole enterprise of science. It is very inspiring. Of course, the content is insanely interesting. I am hooked like the first episode of Breaking Bad.

adyavanapalli 8y ago

> I am so psyched... Heh, I see what you did there XD

fhe 8y ago

I love the way you opened the course with a personal story.

drakonka 8y ago

Oh man I'm watching the first video and am already hooked, thank you so much for this.

icc97 8y ago

Personally I love the way you describe the brain in the simplest terms possible. You're describing what has the potential to be a very scary hard to learn topic in the simplest terms possible. I'd liken this to how Andrew Ng manages to explain ML/DL in a very calm simple manner. So often lecturers hide behind terminology to make a topic seem more impressive / complex. So thank you. Plus great to see that you're on here too!

sillysaurus3 8y ago

Hey, I just wanted to say that the first video was one of the best introductions to a new topic that I've ever seen. Thanks so much for these.

proxygeek 8y ago

I am about 4 hours in and still into it! Thank you for sharing the lectures. Just finished the series on Face Recognition. I was wondering if the fusiform face area (FFA) get activated while thinking of someone's face instead of actually looking at one? Might also be interesting to explore the memory of faces in persons with prosopagnosia? Haven't actuallly googled for these yet. Will do so in a bit.. after the next series of lectures may be.

nancykanwisher 8y ago
Thank you! It means so much to me that some people are appreciating these lectures. I knocked myself out all spring preparing this course, and it was quite a gut punch to read my course evaluations a few days ago, which ere pretty negative. I was so dispirited, I was actually thinking of stopping posting the lectures, but if you guys/gals are into it, that is awesome,I will keep at it! To answer your question: yes we showed long ago that if you close your eyes and imagine a face you turn on the face area, and if you imagine a place you turn on the place area - here is the article: http://web.mit.edu/bcs/nklab/media/pdfs/OCravenKanwisherJOCN00.pdf http://web.mit.edu/bcs/nklab/media/pdfs/OCravenKanwisherJOCN... We and others have shown that in developmental prosopagnosia, the deficit is not just in remembering faces, but also in perceiving them. Nancy
- manoj_venkat92 8y ago
  PLEASE DON'T STOP POSTING THEM! PRETTY PLEASE? At least, future generations may appreciate it, right?! :P
- sriram_malhar 8y ago
  What? Negative reviews? Why would anyone do that? Get fMRIs of their brains. That lump of entitlement is pressing down on important parts of the brain.
- martinpw 8y ago
  These lectures are fantastic, please don't stop! You mentioned David Marr's book. Given its age, I assume some parts have stood the test of time better than others - would you recommend reading it all or would you focus just on the first part you mentioned in the lecture? And are there other books you would recommend? (I haven't got very far though the lectures yet so apologies if you mention some later on.)

manoj_venkat92 8y ago

Hey Nancy, thanks for doing the lectures. Coolest Online course I ever came across/studied. Love from India.

manoj_venkat92 8y ago
Hey,I'm at lecture 2.6,you're talking about the recognition of faces and it's relationship with the holistic image view/image processing. So, can I go ahead and abstract out the ability of mind being discussed? Basically, given a category, this vision processing module in brain is processing different features of the image(here feature in the machine learning sense). And these categories can be hierarchical. Like faces, humans, creatures, this can be a hierarchy that the brain may be referring to when it is trying to identify a face and switches to the mode where it needs a holistic image view rather than some isolated parts of brain. I understand that imagining how this happens biologically(physiologically) is hard for me. My question is, am I correct in the above inference? I want to suggest an experiment now :D :P
- nancykanwisher 8y ago
  Sounds like you got it, more or less. Current views of how object recognition works in the brain are a lot like current deep net models of object recognition (e.g. Alexnet and beyond): a heirarchical series of processing steps in which units at successive processing stages get more selective for specific things, and more invariant to image variation (size, position, lighting, etc). One view of holistic face perception is that it is just the natural consequence of having units tuned to whole faces (or to large portions of the face). But why this should be implemented in humans as a specific category-selective patch of the brain is an open and fascinating question, that I am now hopeful network modeling may inform.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    Interesting. In the past, I've read researchers commenting that "neural networks" was mostly unfortunate terminology because it implied the similarities between the physical patterns of the brain and connections between nodes in a neural network were a surface similarity that probably didn't offer insights into how the brain really worked. But you're saying that there may be more similarity than we thought. I remember way back when there was some evidence of things like horizontal- and vertical-feature detection. It sounds as if there is still some evidence of this but perhaps more plastic than was once imagined.

vadansky 8y ago

Thanks for the videos! I took intermediate and advanced physiology, so this is more of a refresher. Is there videos for the more advanced courses available too?

nancykanwisher 8y ago
This is not a course per se, but there are a lot of good, cutting edge videos by major players in the field here: https://cbmm.mit.edu/videos https://cbmm.mit.edu/videos

akjetma 8y ago

Just wanted to say thanks--I'm really enjoying these videos!

nancykanwisher 8y ago
So glad to hear it, thank you. Do let me know if you encounter bits that are not clear or if you see ways the lectures could be improved. BTW the lectures were all originally 1 hour and 25 minutes - I just broke them into pieces because everyone tells me that is what web viewers like. Is that working for you guys, or would you prefer to watch a whole 1.5 hour lecture not broken into bits?
- TheAdamAndChe 8y ago
  I don't think pieces are necessarily what web viewers like, but it increases the potential virality of the video by breaking a broad lecture into tweetable, sharable soundbites, thus videos of this format become the de facto web video format. I personally prefer long lectures, but if social media growth is what you are after, I'd keep it as it is.
- THE_PUN_STOPS 8y ago
  Perhaps it is my internet addled reward circuits, but I personally prefer the shorter videos for learning because it helps me compartmentalize and break down topics for understanding.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- manoj_venkat92 8y ago
  Yes, the pieces are just perfect. Any good lecture series on major sites like Coursera have it that way. 1.5 hour lecture give me a good sleep.

sizzle 8y ago

Awesome lectures! Did cogsci undergrad many years ago. If you had to estimate how much of the brain the field of neuroscience truly understands, what would that percentage be around? I remember being shocked how little we actually know about the brain and wonder if we can unlock most of its secrets in our lifetimes. Thanks for being a part of the HN community :)

nancykanwisher 8y ago
It depends what you mean by "understand" :-) On many interpretations, we understand none of it!

eli_gottlieb 8y ago

Hi Nancy, Any chance you've got material covering motor systems instead of the visual sensory systems?

nancykanwisher 8y ago
Sorry, I did not cover the motor system in the course.
- eli_gottlieb 8y ago
  Ah well, thanks. I'm still gonna enjoy the perception material!

dempseye 8y ago

I've watched the first two videos. You're an engaging lecturer and this is a fascinating subject. Thanks for putting them online. I have an MA in philosophy and your friendly dig at philosophers' penchant for stuff like "undetached rabbit parts" made me lol.

Roybot 8y ago

Thanks for all of this Nancy. I'm just a software engineer but I find the connection between technology and the brain intriguing. The brain seems incredibly complex but I'm glad we have content like yours to at least guide us in understanding it.