James W. Pennebaker, Chairman | SEA 4.212 | The University of Texas at Austin | Austin, TX 78712 | 512-471-1157

Home | About Us | Contact Us | Search UT | Seay Building Info | Alumni

Faculty Directory

Faculty & TA Office Hours

Books by Faculty

Area Chairs and Faculty

Faculty Labs & Affiliated Organizations

Wilson S. Geisler, Ph.D.
David Wechsler Regents Professor of Psychology

Email: geisler@psy.utexas.edu Phone: 471-5380 Lab: 471-3054 Office: SEA 4.328A Lab: SEA 4.322 (A,C), 6.110(A-D) Center for Perceptual Systems See also Perceptual Systems

Bill Geisler received his Ph.D. from the Indiana University before coming to the University of Texas. He is director of the Center for Perceptual Systems, holder of the David Wechsler Regents Chair in Psychology, a member of the Institute for Neuroscience and on the faculty of the Biomedical Engineering Program. Geisler has broad interests within the general areas of vision, visual perception and the evolution of perceptual systems. In his lab, scientific questions are often attacked with multiple techniques: psychophysics (behavior), neurophysiology (in collaboration with Professors Albrecht and Seidemann), image and scene analysis, and mathematical and computational modeling. Current projects are concerned with perceptual grouping, visual search, natural scene statistics, and the neurophysiology of primary visual cortex.

Courses

UNDERGRADUATE:

Psy 323 - Introduction to Perception

GRADUATE:

Psy 380E - Vision Systems (taught every Spring semester)
Psy 387N - Fundamentals of Perception (team-taught with D. McFadden)

Selected Publications

(See Dr. Geisler's Lab page for full list of publications which can be downloaded as PDF files)

Geisler, W.S., Perry, J.S., Ing, A.D. (2008) Natural systems analysis. In: B. Rogowitz and T. Pappas (Eds.), Human Vision and Electronic Imaging. SPIE Proceedings, SPIE Vol. 6806.

Chen, Y., Geisler, W.S. & Seidemann, E. (2008) Optimal temporal decoding of V1 population responses reaction-time detection task. Journal of Neurophysiology, 99:1366-1379.

Geisler, W.S. (2008) Visual perception and the statistical properties of natural scenes. Annual Review of Psychology, 59, 10.1-10.26.

Geisler, W.S., Albrecht, D.G. & Crane, A.M. (2007) Responses of neurons in primary visual cortex to transient changes in local contrast and luminance. The Journal of Neuroscience, 27 (19) 5063-5067.

Chen, Y., Geisler, W.S., Seidemann, E. (2006) Optimal decoding of correlated neural population responses in the primate visual cortex. Nature Neuroscience, 9 (11) 1412-1420.

Geisler, W.S., Perry, J.S., Najemnik, J. (2006) Visual search: The role of peripheral information measured using gaze-contingent displays. Journal of Vision, 6, 858-873.

Frazor, R.A., Geisler, W.S. (2006) Local luminance and contrast in natural images. Vision Research, 46, 1585-1598.
Mante et al (2005) Independence of luminance and contrast in natural scenes and in the early visual system. Nature Neuroscience, 8 (12) 1690-1697. Supplementary Information

Raj, R., Geisler, W.S., Frazor, R.A. & Bovik, A.C. (2005) Contrast statistics for foveated visual systems: Fixation selection by minimizing contrast entropy. Journal of the Optical Society of America A., 22 (10) 2039-2049.

Najemnik, J. and Geisler, W.S. (2005) Optimal eye movement strategies in visual search. Nature, 434, 387-391. Supplementary information

Tversky, T., Geisler, W.S. and Perry, J.S. (2004) Contour grouping: Closure effects are explained by good continuation and proximity. Vision Research, 44, 2769-2777.

Frazor, R.A., Albrecht, D.G., Geisler, W.S. and Crane, A.M. (2004)Visual cortex neurons of monkeys and cats: Temporal dynamics of the spatial frequency response function. Journal of Neurophysiology, 91, 2607-2627.

Geisler, W. & Murray, R. (2003) Practice doesn't make perfect. Nature, 423, 696-697.

Geisler, W. S. (2003) Ideal Observer analysis. In: L. Chalupa and J. Werner (Eds.), The Visual Neurosciences. Boston: MIT press, 825-837.

Albrecht, D. G., Geisler, W.S. and Crane, A.M. (2003) Nonlinear properties of visual cortex neurons: Temporal dynamics, stimulus selectivity, neural performance. In: L. Chalupa and J. Werner (Eds.), the Visual Neurosciences. Boston: MIT Press, 747-764.

Geisler, W. S. and Diehl, R.L. (2003) A Bayesian approach to the evolution of perceptual and cognitive systems. Cognitive Science, 27, 379-402.

Albrecht, D. G., Geisler, W.S., Frazor, R. A. and Crane, A.M. (2002) Visual cortex neurons in monkeys and cats: Temporal dynamics of the contrast response function. Journal of Neurophysiology, 88: 889-913.

Geisler, W. S. and Kersten, D. (2002) Illusions, perception and Bayes. Nature Neuroscience, 5, 508-510.

Geisler, W. S. and Perry, J.S. (2002) Real-time simulation of arbitrary visual fields. Proceedings of the Eye Tracking Research & Applications Symposium (ACM) 83-87.

Perry, J.S. and Geisler, W. S. (2002) Gaze-contingent real-time simulation of arbitrary visual fileds. In: B. Rogowitz and T. Pappas (Eds.), Human Vision and Electronic Imaging, SPIE Proceedings.

Geisler, W.S. and Diehl, R.L. (2002) Bayesian Natural Selection and the Evolution of Perceptual Systems. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B, 357, 419-448.

Geisler, W. S., Albrecht, D. G., Crane, A.M. and Stern, L. (2001) Motion Direction Signals in the Primary Visual Cortex of Cat and Monkey. Visual Neuroscience, 18, 501-516.

Geisler, W. S., Perry, J.S., Super, B. J. and Gallogly, D. P. (2001) Edge co-occurrence in natural images predicts contour grouping performance. Vision Research, 41, 711-724.

Geisler, W.S. and Super, B.J. (2000) Perceptual organization of two-dimensional patterns. Psychological Review, 107 (4) 677-708.

Geisler, W.S., Thornton, T., Gallogly, D. P. and Perry, J.S. (2000) Image structure models of texture and contour visibility. Proceedings of he NATO Workshop on Search and Target Acquisition, The Netherlands, 21-23 June 1999.

Geisler, W. S. and Albrecht, D. G. (2000) Spatial vision: Single neurons and perception. Chapter for the Handbook of Cognition and Perception. New York: Academic Press. [Abstract]

Heeger, D.G., Huk, A., Geisler, W.S. and Albrecht, D. G. (2000) Spikes vs. Bold: What does neuroimaging tell us about neural activity? Nature Neuroscience, 3, 631-633.