Prof. Beyeler receives Harold J. Plous Memorial Award

1 November 2024

The Harold J. Plous award recognizes an assistant professor within the College of Letters & Science who has demonstrated outstanding performance or promise as measured by creative action or contribution to the intellectual life of the college community.

BionicVisionXR featured at Unite 2024

17 October 2024

Unity Sentis highlights our real-time VR simulation of bionic eye technology, showcasing AI-driven models for visual stimulus encoding.

Towards a Smart Bionic Eye

28 February 2024

The National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) sent a film crew to UCSB to document the work we do as part of our NIH DP2 New Innovator Award.

3 papers accepted at NeurIPS ‘23

21 September 2023

Our latest work achieves state-of-the-art predictions of primary visual cortex (V1) activity in mouse and monkey, and details a new way to optimize stimulation protocols for visual prostheses.

Hybrid neural autoencoders to enhance sensory neuroprostheses

21 June 2022

Our approach to end-to-end optimization of bionic vision was featured in a news article by TechXplore.

Are we witnessing the dawn of post-theory science?

9 January 2022

Prof. Beyeler was mentioned in a recent article by The Guardian that discusses recent advances in machine learning and what data-driven discovery means for the classic methodology of hypothesizing, predicting, and testing.

Illustration: © PM Images/Getty

PCMag: Building the bionic eye… with car tech?

23 February 2021

Interview with Prof. Beyeler: Instead of focusing on one day restoring natural vision, we may be better off thinking about how to create useful artificial vision now.

Illustration: © Yuichiro Chino/Getty

All news articles

More media coverage can be found in our news archive.

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Who We Are

We are an interdisciplinary group interested in exploring the mysteries of human, animal, and artificial vision. Our passion lies in unraveling the science behind bionic technologies that may one day restore useful vision to people living with incurable blindness.

At the heart of our lab is a diverse team that integrates computer science and engineering with neuroscience and psychology. What unites us is a shared fascination with the intricacies of vision and its potential public health applications. However, we are not just about algorithms and data; our research projects range from trying to understand perception in individuals with visual impairments to crafting biophysical models of brain activity and engaging in the transformative world of virtual and augmented reality to create novel visual accessibility tools.

What sets our lab apart is our connection to the community of implant developers and bionic eye recipients. We don't just theorize; we are committed to transforming our ideas into practical solutions that are rigorously tested across different bionic eye technologies. Our goal is to enhance not just scientific understanding, but to foster a greater sense of independence in the lives of those with visual impairments.

Neuroscience

Vision

Neurotechnology

Recent Publications

We present insights from 16 semi-structured interviews with individuals who are either legally or completely blind, highlighting both the current use and potential future applications of technologies for home-based iADLs.

Our interview study found a significant gap between researcher expectations and implantee experiences with visual prostheses, underscoring the importance of focusing future research on usability and real-world application.

We present a series of analyses on the shared representations between evoked neural activity in the primary visual cortex of a blind human with an intracortical visual prosthesis, and latent visual representations computed in deep neural networks.

We retrospectively analyzed phosphene shape data collected form three Argus II patients to investigate which neuroanatomical and stimulus parameters predict paired-phosphene appearance and whether phospehenes add up linearly.

We propose a personalized stimulus encoding strategy that combines state-of-the-art deep stimulus encoding with preferential Bayesian optimization.

We introduce a multimodal recurrent neural network that integrates gaze-contingent visual input with behavioral and temporal dynamics to explain V1 activity in freely moving mice.

Award-Winning Publications

We propose a perceptual stimulus encoder based on convolutional neural networks that is trained in an end-to-end fashion to predict the electrode activation patterns required to produce a desired visual percept.

We combined deep learning-based scene simplification strategies with a psychophysically validated computational model of the retina to generate realistic predictions of simulated prosthetic vision.

In the Spotlight

We introduce two computational models designed to accurately predict phosphene fading and persistence under varying stimulus conditions, cross-validated on behavioral data reported by nine users of the Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System.

We present a series of analyses on the shared representations between evoked neural activity in the primary visual cortex of a blind human with an intracortical visual prosthesis, and latent visual representations computed in deep neural networks.

We present a systematic literature review of 227 publications from 106 different venues assessing the potential of XR technology to further visual accessibility.

In the News

What is the required stimulus to produce a desired percept? Here we frame this as an end-to-end optimization problem, where a deep neural network encoder is trained to invert a known, fixed forward model that approximates the underlying biological system.

We optimize electrode arrangement of epiretinal implants to maximize visual subfield coverage.

Gallery

001 at fall vision meeting with dan adams eduardo fernandez xing chen frederik ceyssens antonio lozano jan antolik

001 at fall vision meeting with dan adams eduardo fernandez xing chen frederik ceyssens antonio lozano jan antolik

002 byron johnson presenting at vss

002 byron johnson presenting at vss

003 group picture of the bvl team celebrating prof

003 group picture of the bvl team celebrating prof

004 group picture of the bvl team at the eye and the chip 2023

004 group picture of the bvl team at the eye and the chip 2023

005 dr justin kasowski getting hooded at the 2023 commencement ceremony

005 dr justin kasowski getting hooded at the 2023 commencement ceremony

007 argus ii user drawing a perceived phosphene on a touchscreen in front of him

007 argus ii user drawing a perceived phosphene on a touchscreen in front of him

007 prof

007 prof

008 bionic vision lab cake designed by tori le vier

008 bionic vision lab cake designed by tori le vier

009 jacob granley in front of his poster at neur IP s 2022

009 jacob granley in front of his poster at neur IP s 2022

010 galen pogoncheff using the bionic vision xr simulator

010 galen pogoncheff using the bionic vision xr simulator

011 students drifting off in the sunset after a hard days work

011 students drifting off in the sunset after a hard days work

012 prof

012 prof

013 MAC and cheese trophy given to first place winner lily turkstra at the lab's first competitive MAC and cheese cookoff

013 MAC and cheese trophy given to first place winner lily turkstra at the lab's first competitive MAC and cheese cookoff

014 group picture of the bvl team at the MAC and cheese cookoff

014 group picture of the bvl team at the MAC and cheese cookoff

015 dr aiwen xu getting hooded at the 2024 commencement ceremony

015 dr aiwen xu getting hooded at the 2024 commencement ceremony

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