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    BREAKING NEWS

  • March 2017
    Dornsife Magazine discusses pioneering research by Irving Biederman and the late Bosco Tjan in scene processing. The story compiles recent studies from the Image Understanding Laboratory to address the fundamental question of how our brains can make sense of a scene in a fraction of a second. [PDF]

  • February 2017
    Irving Biederman was interviewed on the IUL's recent publication concerning the neural mechanisms guiding the creativity of comedians. The article can be found through the following link: Link.

  • October 2016
    Irving Biederman was interviewed on the BBC World Service Radio on the lab's research into phonagnosia, the inability to recognize familiar voices. The segment starts at about 8 min 10 sec into the broadcast which can be heard through the following link: Link. For those who wish to try their mind's ear as to how good they are at identifying celebrity voices familiar to most Americans, they can take the USC Voice Recognition Survey at Link.

  • September 14, 2015
    An interview with Irving Biederman on "Why You Get Your Best Ideas in the Shower" was featured on the Sept 14, 2015 issue of attn.com, a website devoted to cognitive neuroscience. Link

  • August 10, 2015
    The lab's recent Brain & Language article on phonagnosia, the inability to identify a person on the basis of their voice (hence a voice homologue to prosopagnosia), was featured on braindecoder.com. Link

  • June 6, 2015
    Ori Amir was awarded the International Society for Humor Studies Graduate Student Award for his paper "The Neural Genesis of a Joke", co-authored with Irving Biederman. Ori will present the paper in the society's annual meeting in a special conference session, July 3rd, in Oakland California.

  • April 21, 2015
    Eshed Margalit, a Computational Neuroscience major and Computer Science minor, was awarded the Brian Philip Rakusin Award for the Best Undergraduate Neuroscience Major with sophomore or junior standing. The award includes an acrylic trophy, a permanent inscription on a wall plaque in the Hedco Neurosciences Building, and a substantial monetary prize. Eshed is the third Image Understanding Laboratory student to be so recognized. Last year, Sarah B. Herald, also an undergraduate researcher in the lab, was the Rakusin Awardee. In 2013, the award went to Manan P. Shah, another undergraduate researcher in the Image Understanding Lab.




  • April 21, 2015
    At the Biological Sciences and Neuroscience Honors Luncheon, Sarah B. Herald and Manan P. Shah received the Neuroscience Outstanding Student of the Year Award for their academic and scientific accomplishments.




  • April 3, 2015
    At the Annual Honors Convocation, Manan P. Shah will receive a University of Southern California Trustee Award for maintaining a 4.0 average throughout his four years as an undergraduate.

  • April 29, 2014
    A story on USC's new and unique undergraduate major in Computational Neuroscience whose curriculum was designed by Irving Biederman, Co-Director of the Undergraduate Neuroscience Program, appeared in USC News. As one of the first of the Computational Neuroscience majors, the story also featured Sarah B. Herald's research on phonagnosia, the inability to identify people on the basis of their voice.
    [Link]

  • April 22, 2014
    Sarah B. Herald, an undergraduate researcher in the lab and a Computational Neuroscience Major, was awarded the Brian Philip Rakusin Award for the Best Undergraduate Neuroscience Major with sophomore or junior standing. The award includes an acrylic trophy, a permanent inscription on a wall plaque in the Hedco Neurosciences Building, and a substantial monetary prize. Sarah is the second Image Understanding Laboratory student to be so recognized. Last year, Manan P. Shah, also an undergraduate researcher in the lab, was the Rakusin Awardee.

  • April 2014
    Irving Biederman commented on a recent paper in Nature (Constantin et al., 2014) purportedly showing that face-blind people can learn to distinguish "greebles," stimuli meant to share properties with faces, but not faces. Although the study was billed as indicated that the brain has specialized mechanisms for recognizing faces, Biederman raises problems with the use of greebles to test that idea.
    [Link]

  • August 23, 2013
    Irving Biederman was interviewed in a piece, "Familiar Faces," in Science News about "super recognizers," rare individuals who have the extraordinary ability to remember faces seen only briefly years earlier.
    [Link]

  • August 1, 2013
    The Image Understanding Laboratory's research on prosopagnosia and phonagnosia--the inability to recognize people on the basis of their faces or voices, respectively--was featured on Fox San Diego's Fox TV affiliate with Irving Biederman and Sarah Herald discussing the conditions. The Fox webpage also includes links to the IUL's tests for face and voice recognition.
    [Link]

  • April 23, 2013
    Manan P. Shah was awarded the Brian Philip Rakusin Award for the Best Undergraduate Neuroscience Major with sophomore or junior standing. The award includes an acrylic trophy, a permanent inscription on a wall plaque in the Hedco Neurosciences Building, and a significant monetary prize.

  • May 16, 2013
    Irving Biederman was interviewed in the The New Yorker online Science Feature Elements on the lasting effects of psychedelic drugs "A Trip that Doesn't End".
    [Link]

  • Dec 27, 2011
    "Source of Key Brain Function Located: How to Comprehend a Scene in Less than a Second" was featured on Science and Technology Updates.com, based on a Journal of Neuroscience paper by Jiye G. Kim and Irving Biederman (Kim, Biederman, & Juan, 2011) and an interview with Irving Biederman
    [Link]

  • July 06, 2011
    Irving Biederman was featured on YouBeauty, the Science of Beautiful You on, "How feeding your inner "infovore" can make you more attractive."
    [YouBeauty]

  • July 17, 2010
    Irving Biederman was featured (as a skeptical scientist) in a segment of Penn & Teller's Bullsh*t Showtime Program on "Area 51," the secret Nevada Air Force Base where some souls believe that extra terrestrial aliens and their space craft are being held and studied.
    [Area 51]

  • Nov 30, 2009
    Our research was a featured on a segment of a new PBS one-hour show on The Science of Healing. The premier was on November 30, 2009, but it will be shown repeatedly over the coming months. A link to (a near final edited) copy is below.
    [The Science of Healing]

  • Nov 23, 2009
    Our research with the Himba in Northwest Namibia was featured on the National Science Foundation's website and on the US News & World Report under the title "Brain has an Innate Sense of Geometry."
    [NSF: Namibia Link]
    [US News & World Report: Namibia Link]

  • May 2, 2009
    Irving Biederman gave the keynote address at the 2009 Cognitive Neuroscience Annual Spring Retreat at the Salk Institute in San Diego, CA.
    Title: The Neural Basis of (Object) Shape Recognition.
    [Video: Vision Retreat-Keynote Address]

  • Sept 9, 2008
    Irving Biederman presented a lecture entitled "Aesthetics and the Brain" as part of the University of Southern California Visions & Voices lecture series.

  • Sept 6, 2008
    Irving Biederman was interviewed by the University of Southern California's radio station KUSC on the neural basis of aesthetics.

  • Sept, 2008
    Irving Biederman was interviewed on NPR's "Fair Game with Faith Salie" on the subject of "Infovores." The interview can be found at the link provided below.
    [Fair Game: Infovores]

  • July 19, 2008
    Below is a link to Irving Biederman's recent Los Angeles Times Op-Ed piece "The 411 to Avoid Boredom" based on the theory of the Neural Basis of Perceptual and Cognitive Pleasure.
    [LA Times: The 411 to Avoid Boredom]