Tahereh Toosi - Academic Website

Research Lines

Neural basis of perception beyond physical stimulation

Understanding how the brain completes missing information and generates mental images

Neuroscience AI

Computational and theoretical understanding of regulatory mechanisms shaping natural vision

Investigating how biological constraints shape visual processing and development

Neuroscience

Bio-plausible learning algorithms

Realisitc alternatives to backpropagation of errors

Neuroscience AI

Emergence of temporally predictive representations in robust neural networks

Robustness to input noise leads to emergent temporal predictability in neural representations

Neuroscience AI

Interpretable features to identify neural representations

Making neural representations (natural or artificial) interpretable using meta-space analysis

Neuroscience AI

Experiments on Humans and non-human primates: Temporal Attention and object recognition abilities

Understanding how the brain uses temporal patterns to anticipate and shape perception

Neuroscience

Publications

Journals, Proceedings, and Preprints

Illusions as features: the generative side of recognition

Toosi, T., & Miller, K. D.

Workshop on Scientific Methods for Understanding Deep Learning, Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS) (2024)

Brain-like flexible visual inference by harnessing feedback-feedforward alignment

Toosi, T., & Issa, E. B.

Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS) (2023)

Brain-like representational straightening of natural movies in robust feedforward neural networks

Toosi, T., & Issa, E. B.

International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR) (2023)

Representational constraints underlying similarity between task-optimized neural systems

Toosi, T.

arXiv (2023)

Marmoset core visual object recognition behavior is comparable to that of macaques and humans

Kell, A. J. E., Bokor, S., Jeon, Y., Toosi, T., & Issa, E. B.

iScience (2023)

Learning temporal context enhances the prestimulus alpha oscillations in the parietal cortex and improves the visual discrimination performance

Toosi, T., Tousi, E. K., & Esteky, H.

Journal of Neurophysiology (2016)

Recent Peer Reviewed Abstracts

A unified computational framework for visual dysfunctions in psychosis

Toosi, T., & Miller, K. D.

Journal of Vision (2025)

Generative inference in object recognition models—A unifying framework for discriminative and generative computations in vision

Toosi, T., & Miller, K. D.

From Neuroscience to Artificially Intelligent Systems (2024)

Generative perceptual inference in deep neural network models of object recognition induces illusory contours and shapes

Toosi, T., & Miller, K. D.

Cognitive Computational Neuroscience (CCN) (2024)

Emergence of illusory contours in robust deep neural networks by accumulation of implicit priors

Toosi, T., & Miller, K. D.

Computational and Systems Neuroscience (Cosyne) (2024)

Representational constraints underlying similarity between task-optimized neural systems

Toosi, T.

Unifying Representations in Neural Models Workshop, Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS) (2023)

Object-enhanced and object-centered representations across primate ventral visual cortex

Toosi, T., Kriegeskorte, N., & Issa, E. B.

Cognitive Computational Neuroscience (CCN) (2023)

Perceptually-aligned gradients by sampling the implicit prior

Toosi, T.

Conference on the Mathematical Theory of Deep Neural Networks (DeepMath) (2022)

Invited Talks

Generative inference in object recognition models—A unifying framework for discriminative and generative computations in vision

TigerBrain Research Symposium, Princeton University (2024)

Generative inference in object recognition models—A unifying framework for discriminative and generative computations in vision

From Neuroscience to Artificially Intelligent Systems, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (2024)

Generative perceptual inference in deep neural network models of object recognition induces illusory shapes

Swartz Foundation Meeting, University of Washington (2024)

Emergence of illusory contours in robust deep neural networks by accumulation of implicit priors

Object Recognition: Models, Vision Science Society Meeting, St. Pete Beach Florida (2024)

Cortical computations underlying the integration of perceptual priors and sensory processing

Brain Science External Postdoc Seminar Series, Brown University (2024)

Can images predict neural patterns better than Deep Nets?

ICBINB Workshop, Cosyne Meeting, Lisbon, Portugal (2024)

Harnessing feedback pathways: Integrating perceptual priors in sensory processing

SYNAPSES Seminar Series, Yale University (2024)

Uncovering the evolution of neural representations in the ventral visual stream

Neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (NeuroAILab), Stanford University (2023)

Interpretable intermediate representations in primate ventral visual cortex

Visual Inference Lab, Columbia University (2023)

Representational straightening of natural movies in robust feedforward neural networks

Visual Object and Scene Recognition Nanosymposium, Society for Neuroscience Meeting, San Diego (2022)

Symbiotic learning of feedforward and feedback networks

From Neuroscience to Artificially Intelligent Systems, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 2020