Benjamin Balas
 
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Welcome!

I am a vision scientist working in Dr. Nancy Kanwisher's lab in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT. I investigate the perception and recognition of faces, objects, and textures. My work combines computer vision, machine learning, psychophysics, and electrophysiology to study how children and adults recognize the people and things around them. My goal is to understand what visual information we use to make complex decisions about the world we see.

Curriculum Vitae

Benjamin Balas, PhD.
Kanwisher Lab
Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA 02139
 
Phone (office):             (+1) 617-258-0670       
Phone (mobile):             (+1) 617-669-5845       
Email: bjbalas@gmail.com
 

Academic Positions

  • 2009-Present Postdoctoral researcher & Project Manager, MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Research Advisor: Dr. Nancy Kanwisher.
  • Spring 2009 - Instructor, MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, 9.35 - Sensation & Perception
  • 2007-2009 Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience, Children's Hospital Boston. Research Advisor: Dr. Charles Nelson.

Education

  • 2002-2007 PhD. Dept. of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT (GPA: 5.0/5.0), Dissertation Advisor: Dr. Pawan Sinha
  • 1998-2002 S.B. Dept. of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT (GPA: 4.9/5.0)

Publications

Journal articles

  1. Balas, B., Nakano, L. & Rosenholtz, R. (accepted) A summary-statistic representation of the visual periphery predicts visual crowding. Journal of Vision.
  2. Balas, B. & Nelson, C.A. (accepted) The role of face shape and pigmentation in other-race face perception: An electrophysiological study, Neuropsychologia.
  3. Aflaki, P., Pomohac, B., Balas, B., Nelson, C. (in press) Partial facial transplantation: Age considerations in central face transplantation.Journal of Plastic, Reconstructive, & Aesthetic Surgery.
  4. Balas, B. (in press) Using innate visual biases to guide face learning in natural scenes: A computational investigation, Developmental Science
  5. Aflaki, P., Pohomac, B., Balas, B., Nelson, C.A. (in press) Partial facial transplantation – clinical implications on donor-recipient selection and appearance. Journal of Plastic, Reconstructive, & Aesthetic Surgery.
  6. Balas, B., & Sinha, P. (in press) A speed-dependent inversion effect in dynamic object matching. Journal of Vision.
  7. Balas, B. & Sinha, P. (in press) The role of sequence order in determining view canonicality for novel wire-frame objects, Perception & Psychophysics.
  8. Balas, B. & Sinha, P. (in press) Learned prediction affects body perception, Visual Cognition.
  9. Balas, B. & Sinha, P. (2008) Observing object motion induces increased generalization and sensitivity, Perception, 37(8), 1160-1174.
  10. Balas, B. (2008) Attentive texture similarity as a categorization task: Comparing texture synthesis models. Pattern Recognition, 41(3), 972-982.
  11. Balas, B. & Sinha, P. (2007) “Filling-in” color in natural scenes. Visual Cognition, 15(7), 765-778.
  12. Balas, B. & Sinha, P. (2007) Portraits and Perception: Configural Information in Recognizing and Creating Face Images. Spatial Vision. 21(1-2), 119-135.
  13. Balas, B., Cox, D. & Conwell, E. (2007) The Effect of Real-World Personal Familiarity on the Speed of Face Information Processing. PLoS:ONE, 2(11), e1223.
  14. Balas, B. (2006) Texture Synthesis and Perception: Using Computational Models to Study Texture Representations in the Human Visual System. Vision Research, 46, 299-309.
  15. Balas, B. & Sinha, P. (2006) Receptive Field Structures for Recognition. Neural Computation, 18(3), 497 520.
  16. Balas, B. & Sinha, P. (2006) Region-based representations for face recognition, ACM Transactions on Applied Perception, 3(4), 354-375.
  17. Sinha, P., Balas, B., Ostrovsky, Y. & Russell, R. (2006) Face Recognition by Humans: 19 Results all Computer Vision Researchers Should Know About. Proceedings of the IEEE,1948-1962

Conference Papers, Book Chapters & Other Manuscripts

  1. Sinha, P., Balas, B., Ostrovsky, Y. & Wulff, J. (i2009) Visual Object Discovery, "Object Categorization: Computer and Human Vision Perspectives", Sven Dickinson, Ales Leonardis, Bernt Schiele, Michael J. Tarr (eds.), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
  2. Sinha, P., Balas, B. (2008) Computational Models of Visual Processing, “The Cambridge Handbook of Computational Cognitive Modeling”, Editor R. Sun, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
  3. Balas, B. (2007) Learning about dynamic objects and recognizing static form. Unpublished PhD Thesis, MIT Dept. of Brain and Cog. Sci.
  4. Balas, B. & Sinha, P. (2007) Diagnostic object motion weakens representations of static form. In D.S. McNamara & J.G. Trafton (eds.), Proceedings of the 29th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.
  5. Conwell, E. & Balas, B. (2007) Assessing the efficacy of transitional probabilities for learning grammatical categories. In D.S. McNamara & J.G. Trafton (eds.), Proceedings of the 29th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.
  6. Balas, B., Cox, D.A. & Conwell, E. (2006) The effect of personal familiarity on the speed of face recognition. In R. Sun & N. Miyake (eds.) Proceedings of the 28th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society.Vancouver, BC: Cognitive Science Society.
  7. Gallagher, K., Balas, B., Matheny, J. & Sinha, P. (2005) The Effects of Scene Category and Content on Boundary Extension. In B. Bara, L. Barsalou, & M. Bucciarelli (eds.) Proceedings of the 27th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. Stresa, Italy: Cognitive Science Society.
  8. Sinha, P., Balas, B., Ostrovsky, Y., & Russell, R. (2005) Face recognition by Humans. In “Face Recognition: Mechanisms and Models”, Editor R. Chellapa, Academic Press.
  9. Balas, B. (2005) Using Computational Models to Study Texture Representations in the Human Visual System, MIT CSAIL Memo, 2005-002.
  10. Balas, B. & Connor, C.W. (2004-2005) Look-up and Scream: Analytical Difficulties in Improv Comedy, Journal of Recreational Mathematics, 33(1), 32-38.
  11. Balas, B. & Tenenbaum, J. (2004) Domain-Specificity in Shape Categorization and Perception. In K. Forbus, D. Gentner, & T. Reiger (eds.) Proceedings of the 26th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 67-72., Chicago, IL: Cognitive Science Society.
  12. Balas, B. & Sinha, P. (2003) Dissociated Dipoles:Image Representation Via Non-local Comparisons. MIT AI Memo, 2003-018.

Manuscripts submitted or under revision

  1. Moulson, M. & Balas, B. (under revision) The development of other-species face recognition in childhood
  2. Moulson, M., Balas, B., Nelson, C., & Sinha, P. (under revision) Neural correlates of face processing: A computational and electrophysiological study.
  3. Balas, B., Nelson, C., Westerlund, A., Vogel, V., De Boer, T. (submitted) Personal familiarity influences the processing of upright and inverted faces in infants: An event-related potential analysis.
  4. Balas, B. & Nelson, C.A. (submitted) How does the brain classify ambiguous-race faces?

Manuscripts in preparation

  1. Balas, B. (in prep) Making faces: Poor access to configural information in the creation of "average" face portraits.
  2. Balas, B. (in prep) A statistical theory of perceptual narrowing in face space.
  3. Balas, B. (in prep) What makes a face a "whole?" Contributions of internal and external features.
  4. Rosenholtz, R., Balas, B., Raj, A. (in prep) A Statistical Representation in Early Vision Predicts Search Performance.
  5. Raj, A., Rosenholtz, R., Balas, B. (in prep) A Statistical Representation of the Visual Periphery Explains the Pinna-Gregory Illusion.

Talks and Conference Presentations

  1. Balas, B. & Rosenholtz, R. (2009) Visual Crowding as Texture Perception: Analysis and Synthesis, 13th International Conference on Cognitive & Neural Systems. Boston, MA.
  2. Balas, B. (2009) Using innate visual biases to guide face learning in natural scenes: A computational investigation, 2009 Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, Naples, FL.
  3. Rosenholtz, R., Chan, S., & Balas, B. (2009) A crowded model of visual search, Abstract for platform presentation, 2009 Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, Naples, FL.
  4. Raj, A., Rosenholtz, R., & Balas, B. (2009) A texture processing model visualizes perception of Pinna-Gregory illusion, Abstract for poster presentation, 2009 Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, Naples, FL.
  5. Balas, B. & Nelson, C.A. (2009) ERP Correlates of Other-Race Face Perception in 9-Month-Old Infants, Abstract for poster presentation, Society for Research in Child Development, Denver, CO.
  6. Balas, B., Shutts, K.B., Westerlund, A. & Nelson, C.A. (2009) Complementarity Between NIRS and ERPs in Investigations of Infant Face Processing, Symposium Presentation, Society for Research in Child Development, Denver, CO.
  7. Moulson, M.C. & Balas, B. (2009) Qualitative Differences Between Own- and Other-Species Face Processing in Children, Abstract for poster presentation, Society for Research in Child Development, Denver, CO.
  8. Morash, V. & Balas, B. (2008) Invariance in haptic object recognition, Abstract for platform presentation, 2008 European Conference on Visual Perception, Utrecht.
  9. Balas, B. & Sinha, P. (2008) A speed-dependent inversion effect in dynamic object matching. Abstract for platform presentation, 2008 Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, Naples, FL.
  10. Nakano, L., Rosenholtz, R. & Balas, B. (2008) A Texture-Perception Model of Crowding for General Stimuli, Version 1.0. Abstract for poster presentation, 2008 Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, Naples, FL.
  11. Moulson, M., Balas, B., Nelson, C. & Sinha, P. (2008) EEG correlates of categorical and graded face perception. Abstract for platform presentation, 2008 Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, Naples, FL.
  12. Balas, B. & Sinha, P. (2007) Does the visual system extract “keyframes” from dynamic sequences? Abstract for platform presentation, 2007 Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, Sarasota, FL.
  13. Sinha, P., Balas, B. & Ostrovsky, Y. (2007) Discovering faces in infancy, Abstract for platform presentation, 2007 Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, Sarasota, FL.
  14. Balas, B. & Sinha, P. (2007) Interactions between prior knowledge and recent experience in the perception of dynamic objects, OPAM, Long Beach, CA.
  15. Balas, B. (2006) “Learning about dynamic objects and recognizing static form.” MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Cog Lunch Series.
  16. Balas, B. & Sinha, P. (2006) Learning about objects in motion: Better generalization and sensitivity through temporal association. Abstract for poster presentation, 2006 Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, Sarasota, FL.
  17. Balas, B. & Sinha, P. (2005) Motion-based orienting, segmenting and tracking in a model of object learning. Abstract for platform presentation, 2005 Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society. Sarasota, FL.
  18. Sinha, P., Balas, B. & Ostrovsky, Y. (2005) Project DYLAN: Modeling the development of visual object concepts. Abstract for poster presentation, 2005 Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society. Sarasota, FL.
  19. Balas, B. (2005) “Texture synthesis as a tool for understanding texture perception.” Harvard University, Department of Psychology, Cognition, Brain and Behavior Series.
  20. Balas, B., Jameson, M. & Sinha, P. (2004) The illusion of 'pan-field' color. Abstract for platform presentation, 2004 Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, Sarasota, FL.
  21. Balas, B. (2004) “Color spreading in natural scenes: image statistics and ‘pan-field’ color.” MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Cog Lunch Series.
  22. Balas, B. & Sinha, P. (2004) Sticks: a non-local vocabulary for image representation. Abstract for poster presentation, Society for Neuroscience, San Diego, CA.
  23. Balas, B. (2003) “Dissociated Dipoles: non-local comparisons for object and face recognition.” MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Cog Lunch Series.
  24. Balas, B. & Sinha, P. (2003) STICKS: Image representation via non-local comparisons. Abstract for platform presentation, 2003 Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, Sarasota, FL.
  25. Peretti, J. H., Balas, B. & Smith, B. (2001) Teacher's LAB: Using curricular materials to promote collaboration. Abstract for poster presentation, 2001 European Conference for Computer Supported Collaborative Learning.

Academic and Professional Honors

  • National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship, 2004-2007
  • Walle Nauta Award for Continuing Dedication to Teaching – MIT BCS, 2006
  • Walle Nauta Award for Continuing Dedication to Teaching – MIT BCS, 2005
  • Angus MacDonald Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching – MIT BCS, 2004
  • Hans-Lukas Teuber Award for Outstanding Research - MIT BCS, 2002
  • Phi Beta Kappa, 2002

Memberships and Professional Service

  • Member, Sigma Xi
  • Member, Vision Sciences Society
  • Member, Cognitive Sciences Society
  • Member, American Psychological Society
  • Sponsored Member, AAAS
  • Ad-hoc Reviewer: Pattern Recognition, Vision Research, Developmental Science, Journal of Vision, PLoS:ONE 

Teaching Experience

  • 2006        Teaching Assistant, Laboratory in Experimental Cognitive Science (Instructor: Aude Oliva)
  • 2005        Teaching Assistant, Laboratory in Experimental Cognitive Science (Instructor: Pawan Sinha)
  • 2004        Teaching Assistant, Introduction to Psychology (Instructor: Jeremy Wolfe)
  • 2004-6     Technical Assistant, MGH Visiting Fellowship Program fMRI Course (Instructor: Robert Savoy)

Undergraduate Advisees

  • Mariko Jameson – Research Coordinator, Massachusetts General Hospital
  • Katie Gallagher – Research Assistant, Children’s Hospital Boston
  • Anne Breckenkamp – Senior, MIT Dept. of Chemical Engineering
  • Helene Moorman – Senior, MIT Dept. of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
  • Jacquelyn Gold – Junior, MIT Dept. of Brain and Cognitive Sciences

Professional References

 
Dr. Pawan Sinha, Associate Professor of Vision and Computational Neuroscience
Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT
77 Massachusetts Avenue, Rm. 46-4077
Cambridge, MA 02139
Email: psinha@mit.edu                                                                                                                                                                  
 
Dr. Charles A. Nelson, Director of Research
Developmental Medicine Center, Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience
Children’s Hospital Boston
1 Autumn St., Rm. AU621
Boston, MA 02215
 
Dr. Aude Oliva, Assistant Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience
Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT
77 Massachusetts Avenue, Rm. 46-4078
Cambridge, MA 02139
Email: oliva@mit.edu 
 
Dr. Ruth Rosenholtz, Principal Research Scientist
Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT
77 Massachusetts Avenue, Rm. 46-4115D
Cambridge, MA 02139