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The best thing that we're put here for's to see.

-The Star-Splitter, Robert Frost

 

Daniel J. Graham

 

Department of Psychological Basic Research

University of Vienna

Vienna 1010 Austria

tel. +43 1 4277 47930

US tel. 1 (607) 216 4494

fax +43 1 4277 47819

 

Email:

artstats  at  gmail  d0t  com

or

Myfirstname.mylastname@univie.ac.at

 

CV available HERE

 

 

RESEARCH SUMMARY

 

I study perceptual processing in humans from a variety of perspectives, focusing on natural vision. Much of my work focuses on aspects of visual perception that are instantiated in artwork, and in artists themselves. Artwork forms a useful and interesting class of natural stimuli, one created exclusively for the human eye, and only by humans. My research employs computational and behavioral experimental methods in order to help elucidate the nature of neural processing.

 

Key questions my work addresses include:

 

o   How do humans capture high dynamic range scenes such as landscapes in a recognizable way using paint?

 

o   How do artists judge size, color, and light intensity in the world so that they can represent these quantities on canvas?

 

o   What visual attributes and statistical properties constitute artistic style, and can style be modeled computationally?

 

o   Do human artists produce representations that are efficiently processed by the visual system, and if so, what can this tell us about neural processing in humans?

 

o   How does mental illness affect visual representations in artwork?

 

o   What can we learn about cortical processing from network theoretic principles of dynamic routing?

 

I am a postdoc in the laboratory of Helmut Leder at the University of Vienna. Other current collaborators include Dan Rockmore, James Hughes, and Jay Friedenberg. I have also collaborated with David Field, James Cutting, Chris Redies, and Ming Meng.

 

 

·      Education

 

Ph.D., Psychology, 2008 Cornell University (Advisor: David Field)

M.S., Physics, 2004 Cornell University

B.A., Physics, 2001 Middlebury College

 

 

·      Publications (click paper title for pdf)

 

2011 

 

19. Graham, D. J., Hughes, J. M., Leder, H. and Rockmore, D. N. 2011. Statistics, vision, and the analysis of artistic style. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews-Computational Statistics (WIREs-CS), in press.

 

18. Graham, D. J. and Rockmore, D. N. 2011. The packet switching brain. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 23 (2), 267-276.

 

17. Graham, D. J. and Meng, M. 2011. Artistic representations: clues to efficient coding in human vision. Visual Neuroscience 28, 371-379 [Special Issue on comparative, ecological and developmental aspects of visual system design and function]

 

16. Graham, D. J. and Meng, M. 2011. Altered spatial frequency content in paintings by artists with schizophrenia. i-Perception 2 (1), 1-9.

 

15. Hughes, J. M., Graham, D. J., Jacobsen, C. R. and Rockmore, D. N. 2011. Comparing higher-order spatial statistics and perceptual judgments in the stylometric analysis of art. Proceedings of EUSIPCO 2011 (19th European Signal Processing Conference), Barcelona, ESP.

 

2010

  

14. Graham, D. J. and Redies, C. 2010 Statistical regularities in art: Relations with visual coding and perception. Vision Research 50 (16) 1503-1509.

 

13. Hughes, J. M., Graham, D. J. and Rockmore, D. N. Quantification of artistic style through sparse coding analysis in the drawings of Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 107, 1279-1283.

MEDIA COVERAGE OF PNAS PAPER: Nature, NPR, BBC, Science News, IEEE Spectrum, Ars Technica, Physics World, NH Union Leader, Valley News, The Dartmouth, Press Release

 

12. Graham, D. J., Friedenberg, J. D., Rockmore, D. N. and Field, D. J. 2010. Mapping the similarity space of paintings: image statistics and visual perception. Visual Cognition 18 (4), 559-573.

 

11. Graham, D. J., Friedenberg, J. D., McCandless, C. H. and Rockmore, D. N. 2010. Preference for artwork: Similarity, statistics, and selling price. Proc. SPIE: Human Vision and Electronic Imaging 7527, 75271A.

 

10. Hughes, J. M., Graham, D. J. and Rockmore, D. N. 2010. Stylometrics of artwork: Uses and limitations. Proc. SPIE: Computer Vision and Image Analysis of Art 7531, 75310C.

 

2009

 

9. Graham, D. J. 2009. Art statistics and visual processing: Insights for Picture Coding. Proceedings of the Picture Coding Symposium 2009, Chicago, IL.

 

8. Graham, D. J., Friedenberg, J. D. and Rockmore, D. N. 2009. Efficient visual system processing of spatial and luminance statistics in representational and non-representational art. Proc. SPIE: Human Vision and Electronic Imaging 7240, 72401N.

 

2008

 

7. Graham, D. J. and Field, D. J. 2008. Global nonlinear luminance compression in painted art. Proc. SPIE: Computer Image Analysis in the Study of Art 6810, 68100K.

 

6. Graham, D. J. and Field, D. J. 2008. Variations in intensity statistics for representational and abstract art, and for art from the eastern and western hemispheres. Perception 37, 1341-1352.

 

5. Graham, D. J. and Field, D. J. 2008. Natural images: coding efficiency. In Encyclopedia of Neuroscience ed. Larry R. Squire. Academic Press, Oxford.

 

 

2004 - 2007

 

4. Graham, D. J. and Field, D. J. 2007. Statistical regularities of art images and natural scenes: Spectra, sparseness and nonlinearities. Spatial Vision 21, 149-164.

 

3. Graham, D. J., Chandler, D. M. and Field, D. J. 2006. Can the theory of "whitening" explain the center-surround properties of retinal ganglion cell receptive fields? Vision Research 46, 2901-2913.

 

2. Graham, D. J. and Field, D. J. 2006. Sparse coding in the neocortex. In Evolution of Nervous Systems ed. Jon H. Kaas and Leah A. Krubitzer. Elsevier, Vol. III, pp. 181-187.

 

1. Cuesta-Lopez, S.,  Peyrard, M. and Graham, D. J. 2005. Model for DNA hairpin denaturation. European Physical Journal E-Soft Matter 16, 235-246.

  

 

·      Theses

 

Graham, D. J. 2008. The relationship between efficient coding of natural scenes in the human visual system and statistical regularities in art. Doctoral Thesis, Cornell University.

 

Graham, D. J. 2004. Efficient retinal ganglion cell coding and the statistics of natural scenes. Master's Thesis, Department of Physics, Cornell University.

 

·      Teaching

 

I currently teach Cognitive Foundations of Experience and Behavior (Psychology 200022), an introductory seminar for first-year students at the University of Vienna.

 

For three years (2008-2010), I taught a course of my own design, Current Problems in Applied Mathematics: Mathematical Methods and Models in Visual Neuroscience (MATH 126) , at Dartmouth College. The course focuses on mathematical models and methods used to study visual system processing. The course is aimed at advanced undergraduates and graduate students in mathematics, physics, neuroscience, psychology, and computer science.

 

 

·       Selected Abstracts

 

Graham, D. J. and Meng, M. 2011. Lightness perception in artists. Vision Sciences Society 2011, Naples, FL.

 

Graham, D. J., Friedenberg, J. D. and Rockmore, D. N. Mathematics, Perception, and the Visual Arts: New Perspectives, talk at MathPsych 2009 (Society for Mathematical Psychology), Aug 2009.

 

Graham, D. J., Friedenberg, J. D., Rockmore, D. N. and Field, D. J. 2008. Mapping the similarity space of paintings: Is there a role for image statistics? ECVP 2008 Utrecht, NL.

 

Graham, D. J. and Field, D. J. 2008. Global nonlinear compression of natural luminances in painted art. SPIE Electronic Imaging Conference on Computer Image Analysis in the Study of Art, San Jose CA.

 

Cutting, J. E., Graham, D. J. and Field, D. J. 2008. From a neuroesthetics to a neuroarthistory. Annual Conference of the College Art Association, Dallas TX.

 

Graham, D. J., Page, K. B. and Field, D. J. 2006. Relating nonlinearities to statistical regularities in paintings. Perception 35 supplement for ECVP.

 

Graham, D. J. Chandler, D. M. and Field, D. J. 2005. How alike are natural scenes and paintings? Characterizing the spatial statistical properties of a set of digitized, grey-scale images of painted art.  Perception 34 supplement for ECVP.

 

Graham, D. J., Chandler, D. M. and Field, D. J. 2004. Decorrelation and response equalization with center-surround receptive fields. Journal of Vision 4, 276a.

   

 

·      Invited Talks (selected)

 

The Packet Switching Brain: A Hypothesis, Redwood Neuroscience Institute Seminar, University of California, Berkeley, Nov 2009.  VIDEO now available.

 

The Efficient Artist: Statistical Regularities in Art and Their Relationships with Visual Coding, Oxyopia Lecture Series, University of California, Berkeley, School of Optometry, Nov 2009. VIDEO now available.

 

Art and Efficient Visual Representation, Colloquium Speaker, Department of Mathematics, Middlebury College, Sept 2009.

 

Invited Panelist, Special Session on Visual Attention, Artistic Intent and Efficient Coding, Picture Coding Symposium, Chicago, IL, May 2009.

 

Stylometric analysis of Van Gogh using methods inspired by early visual system neural coding. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands, Oct 2008. (part of IP4AI)

 

Statistical Regularities in Paintings: Connections to Visual Coding and Perception, Friedrich-Schiller-University, Jena, Germany, Sept 2008.

 

Relationships Between Human Visual Coding and Painted Art, Applied and Computational Mathematics Seminar, Dartmouth College, Feb 2008.

 

The Illuminated World: Art and the Visual System, Art for Lunch, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, April 2007.

 

 

·      Support and Awards

 

2008-2009: William H. Neukom 1964 Institute for Computational Science

 

2008-2010: National Science Foundation Small Grant for Exploratory Research DMS-0746667

 

2007: Provost’s Diversity Fellowship, Cornell University

 

2004-2007: National Institutes of Health Kirschstein-NRSA Traineeship (Individual) EY015393

 

2002: NSF Locnet Fellowship, Ecole Normale Superieure, Lyon, France

 

2001-2004: NSF IGERT Program in Nonlinear Dynamics Fellowship, Cornell University

 

 

·      Writing for Non-scientists

 

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I was the lead researcher of a book for general audiences about e-mail and communication, Send, by David Shipley and Will Schwalbe (Knopf). See thinkbeforeyousend.com. Now in a revised edition.

 

 

 

·      Links

 

Science For Everyone: A conference of science writers, including Robert Krulwich and Janna Levin, that I organized at Cornell in May 2004.

 

Noah Graham  (my brother) studies quantum mechanics and teaches physics at my alma mater, Middlebury College.

 

 

Updated 21 Sept 2011