Merav Ahissar
Thursday 23rd April 2015
Time: 4.00pm
Basement Seminar Room
Alexandra House, 17 Queen Square, London, WC1N 3AR
How do we acquire expertise and what fails us?
How is expert’s performance different from the novice or mildly experienced performer? I will make a case for expertise acquisition as a switch in the underlying mechanisms from on-line computations to mostly scheme based performance. This switch is attained when basic task-relevant regularities can be successfully detected and stored in posterior, perceptual areas of the neo-cortex. This “backsourcing” processes transforms cognitive-based performance to perception based. I will give examples from simple auditory discriminations to complex reading acquisition, and their relative failure in the case of dyslexia.
Merav Ahissar
Professor of Psychology,
Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun Chair for learning disabilities
Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences
The Hebrew University
Research interests: The relations between perception and cognitive skills using psychophysics, ERP, fMRI and computational methods, in the general population and in individuals with learning disabilities.
Theories of perceptual learning and their implications for using training as rehabilitation tools.
+44 (0)20 7679 1176