[visionlist] Postdoc opportunity in computational/human vision at the University of Toronto

[Dirk Bernhardt-Walther]

University of Toronto, Bernhardt-Walther Lab and Semantic Technology Lab

A Post-doctoral position in computational modeling of vision and knowledge
acquisition is available with Dirk Bernhardt-Walther (Psychology) and
Michael Grüninger (Mechanical and Industrial Engineering) at the University
of Toronto. We seek a colleague who shares our interest in explaining how
structured knowledge about the world arises through visual perception. The
project combines formal logic in ontologies with perceptual grouping of
visual elements in complex, real-world scenes. Optionally, the project may
involve measuring brain activity using functional magnetic resonance
imaging. The ideal candidate has a strong computational and mathematical
background, experience with state-of-the-art computer vision techniques
and/or a strong background in computational neuroscience. The ability to
communicate with a diverse team of researchers from engineering and
psychology is an essential prerequisite.

Current state-of-the-art computational models of visual processing are
trained to extract visual features of increasing complexity in a hierarchy
of layers, choosing a label from a pretrained set of categories at the apex
of the hierarchy. Such systems lack an important aspect of the human visual
system – a notion of meaning of visual content. The project aims to develop
a new model of visual perception, which integrates the generation of
networks of meaning into all levels of the visual processing hierarchy,
thus allowing structured visual knowledge to arise naturally from visual
perception. Specifically, this will involve the generation of a large
database of images of real-world scenes with detailed ontological
annotations, development of data structures and algorithms for extracting
such ontological structures automatically from images, and testing the
viability of our new meaning-based model of vision for explaining aspects
of human vision.

The University of Toronto, typically ranked as one of the world’s top 20
research universities, is located in downtown Toronto. The city is one of
the most livable and cosmopolitan cities in the world, and has a vibrant
academic and information technology community. This full-time position
includes benefits and is fully funded for two years, with an initial
appointment of one year. There is also the possibility of extending the
position beyond the first two funded years by applying for outside
fellowships. The earliest start date is September 3rd, 2019.

Applicants should submit a CV, brief research statement, relevant
publications, and contact details for two academic references to the
addresses below. Please contact us at either address below for more
information.

Contact Details:
Dirk Bernhardt-Walther: bernhardt-walther at psych.utoronto.ca,
bwlab.utoronto.ca
Michael Grüninger: gruninger at mie.utoronto.ca, stl.mie.utoronto.ca

https://bwlab.utoronto.ca/postdoc-opening/

-- 
=================================
Dirk Bernhardt-Walther, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology
University of Toronto
100 St. George Street
Toronto, ON M5S 3G3
Canada
+1-416-978-6193
bernhardt-walther at psych.utoronto.ca
http://bwlab.utoronto.ca
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://visionscience.com/pipermail/visionlist_visionscience.com/attachments/20190502/e4710638/attachment-0001.html>