
MIT 9.11: The Human Brain (Spring 2018) - indescions_2018
https://nancysbraintalks.mit.edu/course/9-11-the-human-brain
======
nancykanwisher
Hi all- I am so psyched to see that some are finding the videos interesting!
Do send comments if you have them. cheers, Nancy

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proxygeek
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.

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nancykanwisher
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/OCravenKanwisherJOCN...](http://web.mit.edu/bcs/nklab/media/pdfs/OCravenKanwisherJOCN00.pdf)
We and others have shown that in developmental prosopagnosia, the deficit is
not just in remembering faces, but also in perceiving them. Nancy

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martinpw
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.)

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nancykanwisher
It is really the intro and first chapter of Marr's book that is still totally
current. The rest of the book is brilliant but less representative of current
thinking.

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richardboegli
YouTube playlist of all linked videos:
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyGKBDfnk-
iAQx4Kw9JeV...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyGKBDfnk-
iAQx4Kw9JeVqspbg77sfAK0)

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saamm
Thank you for this! I used it to make a little script to download audio from
each lecture:

    
    
      youtube-dl --get-id https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyGKBDfnk-iAQx4Kw9JeVqspbg77sfAK0 -i > ids.txt
      while read id; do
          youtube-dl -f bestaudio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=$id
      done < ids.txt

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exikyut
AFAIK, youtube-dl will find all videos and download them if fed a playlist
URL. I'm curious if this script is a workaround for some obscure brokenness or
something.

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mrybczyn
youtube-dl already has extract audio feature built in. try youtube-dl -x
playlist-url

~~~
exikyut
Ah. I knew there was a rational explanation :) I missed that bit.

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heckanoobs
Watched about an hour so far and this is fabulous. The talks very clearly
outline the bounds of the problem space (known and unknown) and then start
going region to region. The goal is to perceive the texture of the knowledge
domain. This is my favorite way to learn about a subject.

Looks like it's gonna be a nerdy Saturday night binge watching these. Too bad
there isn't a Netflix for this kind of stuff

~~~
flor1s
Not quite the Netflix of online lectures, but there is
[http://videolectures.net](http://videolectures.net). Quite some good stuff on
there, e.g. lectures and conference videos on AI and robotics. The website
feels very web 1.0 though.

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mark-ruwt
For anyone curious about the MIT course numbering system:
[http://catalog.mit.edu/subjects/](http://catalog.mit.edu/subjects/)

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fermienrico
Thank you, this is the most incredible thing ever. From the introductory
video, Nancy is an amazing speaker on such an interesting topic. I've just
ordered pizza. I couldn't be more excited.

Thank you again.

~~~
barftransit
Pizza is bad for your brain. Call for refund now

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eduren
Loving the lectures so far. Wondering if the assignments and readings are
available somewhere, I haven't been able to find them.

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ghaff
There's a long history of really great MIT intro (or relatively so)
psychology/brain science courses. Back in the 1970s, the intro course was a
hugely popular lecture taught by the head of the department.

~~~
GeorgeTirebiter
Yes, Hans-Lukas Teuber. [https://wikipedia.org/en/Hans-
Lukas_Teuber](https://wikipedia.org/en/Hans-Lukas_Teuber) What impressed me so
much about the course was it was completely focused on what, scientifically
(via measurement), was known about the brain. I loved that it wasn't a 'fluff'
psychology class at all.

~~~
ghaff
MIT was rather unusual at the time for taking such a physiology and brain
science approach to psychology. The prevalent school of thought, notably at
Harvard with Skinner, was to treat the brain more or less as a black box and
focus on the inputs and outputs.

Teuber joked at the time that his intro course didn't count toward the
humanities distribution requirement because it wasn't irrational enough.

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JamilD
MIT’s Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines (CBMM) YouTube channel is a gold
mine of interesting videos at the intersection of ML, neuroscience, and
cognitive science. It’s definitely worth checking out.

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compute_me
This looks amazing! Added to my to-watch-list. Also, if you are interested in
this kind of neuro- / cogsci- stuff with a tech-twist you might want to
consider attending this wonderful spring school for an incredibly immersive
learning experience: [https://interdisciplinary-
college.de/](https://interdisciplinary-college.de/)

~~~
hybridtupel
This looks nice, but one can only attend in person, am I right? Or are there
any online materials available?

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ghaff
I'm interested to check this out. I've been trying to understand AI better--
but mostly from the ML perspective. I'm very out of date on brain science
though. I took 9.00 back in the dark ages :-) but I'm not at all up on current
research.

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home_boi
Have you guys applied these more technical/scientific details of the brain to
your life?

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bra-ket
Also see [https://github.com/analyticalmonk/awesome-
neuroscience](https://github.com/analyticalmonk/awesome-neuroscience)

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ultrasounder
Bookmarked! A real gem.Has become a rarity on HN these days. Will pace it and
watch it over a month.

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robg
Now where did I put my user manual?

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m_herrlich
The typo on the second slide, "Marr's Level's of analysis" kinda jumps out
doesn't it?

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lghh
Not really, and it doesn't distract from the content in any meaningful way.

