Rochester Institute of Technology
Center for Imaging Science Seminar 12 February, 2009

ABSTRACT
Scientific computer imaging takes advantage of inherent properties of vision to quickly analyze vast amounts of information in parallel. In primates, the visual system is organized concentrically about a high-resolution center, and this geometric arrangement acts to effectively segregate the functionalities of the center and periphery. While the center is capable of resolving fine detail, given its point-like geometry, information about a scene obtained via the center must be processed sequentially in time. On the other hand information about a scene that comes from the periphery, while sparse in detail, covers an entire scene at once, processing spatially distributed inputs concurrently, in parallel. Attention gives weight to only one of these data streams at a time, so those who have impairments in the center may show advantages for the periphery. Text-reading is primarily done in the center and is carried out sequentially, while aspects of image-reading (such as spatial learning or anomaly detection) use the periphery, processing information concurrently. We would expect those with dyslexia, whose ability for reading text is impaired, may show advantages for peripheral processing important in scientific image analysis. We present preliminary evidence from a study underway that appears to support this suggestion.