{"id":126179,"date":"2019-08-16T11:02:58","date_gmt":"2019-08-16T15:02:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=126179"},"modified":"2021-02-10T09:07:35","modified_gmt":"2021-02-10T14:07:35","slug":"bates-announces-3-97-million-national-science-foundation-grant-for-visual-database-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2019\/08\/16\/bates-announces-3-97-million-national-science-foundation-grant-for-visual-database-project\/","title":{"rendered":"Bates announces $3.97 million National Science Foundation grant for visual database project"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bates College has received a National Science Foundation grant of $3.97 million to create a groundbreaking Visual Experience Database to support research in fields that rely on the analysis and recognition of images, such as neuroscience, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

\"Equipped<\/a>

Assistant Professor of Neuroscience Michelle Greene is the principal investigator for the project to create a Visual Experience Database (Theophil Syslo\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n

The largest-ever federal grant awarded to Bates, the four-year award will fuel the creation of a vast gallery of videos that depict what, and how, people see as they go about daily activities. Bates developed the grant proposal collaboratively with researchers at North Dakota State University and the University of Nevada, Reno.<\/p>\n

Michelle R. Greene, an assistant professor of neuroscience at Bates who studies how the brain makes sense of what we see, is the principal investigator for the project.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m delighted and overwhelmed,\u201d said Greene, \u201cand intensely excited. I have a terrific team of co-principal investigators, so fostering and furthering those connections will make these next four years really fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

The co-principal investigators are Benjamin Balas, a neuroscientist and associate professor of psychology at North Dakota, and Paul MacNeilage and Mark Lescroart, neuroscientists and assistant professors of psychology at Nevada.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are honored to be the lead partner in this multi-state collaboration,\u201d said Bates President Clayton Spencer. \u201cThis grant is important for Maine, Nevada, and North Dakota, and it also has the potential for significant impact on the future of vision research, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s meaningful that the National Science Foundation has chosen a national liberal arts college like Bates to take the lead on this project.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cThis grant brings deserved recognition to Professor Greene, an exemplary member of the Bates faculty who has contributed significantly to the body of published work on visual perception and who engages students extensively in her research,\u201d said Malcolm Hill, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s meaningful that the National Science Foundation has chosen a national liberal arts college like Bates to take the lead on this project,” Hill added. “Indeed, Bates is well-positioned to collaborate on the work to create a Visual Experience Database to support researchers around the world as they grapple with, and bring greater understanding to, the social and ethical consequences of computer vision and artificial intelligence.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Sarah<\/a>

Student researcher Hanna De Bruyn \u201918 (left) works with Assistant Professor of Neuroscience Michelle Greene to prepare an EEG test in March 2018. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cMaine\u2019s colleges and universities are consistently at the forefront of groundbreaking research that improves people\u2019s lives and enhances our understanding of the world around us,\u201d said U.S. Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King of Maine in a joint statement.<\/p>\n

They added, \u201cThrough this funding, Bates College will partner with two other universities to build a database to study human behavior and development through first-person experiences. We applaud the NSF\u2019s investment in Bates\u2019 project, which will help advance the field of vision science.\u201d<\/p>\n

The VED will comprise more than 240 hours of video created specifically for this project and findable through a publicly accessible database. Wearing cameras that simulate human vision, as well as devices to track head and eye movements, observers will undertake routine activities such as walking, shopping, or touring a museum.<\/p>\n

Because they were not intended for research purposes, existing still and moving images are compromised by the many biases their creators bring to them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

By enlisting diverse observers local to each of the three participating institutions, the project will record how changes in environment, age, and task affect the act of looking.<\/p>\n

Much of the data used in such fields as visual neuroscience, psychology, computer vision (a branch of artificial intelligence), and computational sociology consists of vast collections of still and moving images. These are curated largely from public online resources such as YouTube and Google \u2014 but because they were not intended for research purposes, they are compromised by the many biases their creators bring to them.<\/p>\n

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Artificial intelligence systems have biases because they’re not being fed enough solid data, says Michelle Greene.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n