Peter William Battaglia
Curriculum vitae
March 2014
CONTACT
Brain & Cognitive Sciences
MIT, Building 46-4053
77 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139
Tel: 617-452-2548
Email: pbatt@mit.edu
Web: web.mit.edu/~pbatt/www
EDUCATION
PhD, Psychology, University of Minnesota, 2008.
Advisors: Paul Schrater, Daniel Kersten
BA (Honors), Brain & Cognitive Sciences, University of Rochester, 2002.
PROFESSIONAL APPOINTMENTS
Research Scientist, Brain & Cognitive Sciences, MIT, 2011-present.
Advisor: Josh Tenenbaum
Postdoctoral Fellow, Brain & Cognitive Sciences, MIT, 2008-2011.
Advisor: Josh Tenenbaum
Postdoctoral Associate, Psychology, University of Minnesota, 2008.
Advisors: Paul Schrater, Daniel Kersten
Research Associate, Brain & Cognitive Sciences, University of Rochester, 2001-2003.
Advisors: Robert Jacobs, Richard Aslin
PUBLICATIONS
Articles in preparation (drafts available upon request)
Smith K, Vul E, Battaglia PW. Human interactions with physical scenes draw on accurate
intuitions about Newtonian mechanics.
Hamrick JB, Battaglia PW, Griffiths T, Tenenbaum JB. Inferring mass in complex
physical scenes via probabilistic simulation.
Battaglia PW, Salakhutdinov R, Goodman ND, Torralba A, Tenenbaum JB.
Discriminatively-guided Markov Chain Monte Carlo for scene interpretation.
Articles
Battaglia PW, Hamrick JB, Tenenbaum JB (2013) Simulation as an engine of
physical scene understanding, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
110 (45), 18327-18332.
Bouman KL, Xiao B, Battaglia PW, Freeman WT (2013) Estimating the material
properties of fabric from video, International Conference on
Computer Vision 2013, 1984-1991.
Smith KA, Battaglia PW, Vul E (2013) Consistent physics underlying ballistic motion
prediction. Proc. 35th Ann. Conf. Cognitive Science Society.
Hamrick JB, Battaglia PW, Tenenbaum JB (2011) Internal physics models guide
probabilistic judgments about object dynamics, Proc. 33rd Ann. Conf. Cognitive
Science Society.
Battaglia PW, Kersten DJ, Schrater PR (2011) How haptic size sensations improve
distance perception, PLoS Computational Biology, 7 (6), e1002080.
Battaglia PW (2010) Bayesian perceptual inference in linear Gaussian models, MIT
Technical Report, MIT-CSAIL-TR-2010-046.
Schlicht EJ, Shimojo S, Camerer CF, Battaglia PW, Nakayama K (2010) Human
wagering behavior depends on opponents' faces, PLoS ONE, 5 (7), e11663.
Battaglia PW, Di Luca M, Ernst MO, Schrater PR, Machulla T, Kersten DJ (2010)
Within- and cross-modal distance information disambiguate visual size-change
perception, PLoS Computational Biology, 6(3), e1000697.
Battaglia PW, Schrater PR (2007) Humans trade off viewing time and movement
duration to improve visuomotor accuracy in a fast reaching task, Journal of
Neuroscience, 27 (26), 6984-6994.
Battaglia PW, Schrater PR, Kersten DJ (2005) Auxiliary object knowledge influences
visually-guided interception behavior, Proc. 2nd Symposium on Applied
Perception in Graphics and Visualization, ACM International Conference
Proceeding Series, 95, 145-152.
Aslin RN, Battaglia PW, Jacobs RA (2004) Depth-dependent contrast gain control,
Vision Research, 44 (7), 685-693.
Battaglia PW, Jacobs RA, Aslin RN (2004) Depth-dependent blur adaptation, Vision
Research, 44 (2), 113-117.
Battaglia PW, Jacobs RA, Aslin RN (2003) Bayesian integration of visual and auditory
signals for spatial localization. Journal of the Optical Society of America B, 20,
1391-1397.
Book chapters
Battaglia PW, Kersten DJ, Schrater PR (2011) The role of generative knowledge in
object perception. In: Sensory Cue Integration (Landy M, Trommershauser J,
Koerding K, eds). New York: Oxford University Press.
Conference presentations
Battaglia PW, Hamrick JB, Tenenbaum JB (2013) Simulation as an engine of physical
scene understanding. Poster presented at the Ann. Meeting of the Psychonomic
Society, Toronto, Ontario, November 2013.
Hamrick JB, Battaglia PW, Griffiths TL, Tenenbaum JB (2013) Inferring mass in
complex physical scenes via probabilistic simulation, Talk presented at the 46th
Ann. Meeting of the Society of Mathematical Psychology. Potsdam, Germany.
Hamrick JB, Battaglia PW, Griffiths TL, Tenenbaum JB (2013) Inferring mass in
complex physical scenes via probabilistic simulation, Poster presented at the Ann.
Meeting of the Cognitive Sciences Society, August 2013.
Dilks DD, Julian JB, Battaglia PW, Kanwisher N (2013) Dissociating intuitive physics
from intuitive psychology in adults with Williams syndrome. Poster presented at
Ann. Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society 2013, Naples, FL, May 2013.
Battaglia PW (2012) The intuitive physics engine, Talk presented at the Computational
Models of Intuitive Physics symposium at the Ann. Meeting of the Cognitive
Sciences Society 2012, Sapporo, Japan, August 2012.
Battaglia PW, Hamrick JB, Tenenbaum JB (2012) Intuitive mechanics in visual
reasoning about complex scenes with unknown forces, Poster presented at Ann.
Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society 2012, Naples, FL, May 2012.
Hamrick JB, Battaglia PW, Tenenbaum JB (2012) Physics knowledge aids object
perception in dynamic scenes, Poster presented at Ann. Meeting of the Vision
Sciences Society 2012, Naples, FL, May 2012.
Hamrick JB, Battaglia PW, Tenenbaum JB (2011) Internal physics models guide
probabilistic judgments about object dynamics, Talk presented at 33rd Ann.
Conference of the Cognitive Science Society 2011, Boston, MA, July 2011.
Battaglia PW, Hamrick JB, Tenenbaum JB (2011) Intuitive physics judgments guided by
probabilistic dynamics model, Poster presented at Ann. Meeting of the Vision
Sciences Society 2011, Naples, FL, May 2011.
Battaglia PW, Kersten DJ, Schrater PR (2011) How size improves depth perception,
Poster presented at Cosyne 2011, Utah, Feb 2011.
Battaglia PW, Ernst MO, Di Luca M, Machulla T, Schrater PR, Kersten DJ (2008)
Humans use stereo and haptic distance cues to improve physical object size
estimates, Talk presented at Ann. Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society 2008,
Naples, FL, May 2008.
Battaglia PW, Ernst MO, Di Luca M, Machulla T, Schrater PR, Kersten DJ (2008)
Humans use distance sensory information to improve visual object size
perception, Talk presented at University of Minnesota Doctoral Dissertation
Fellowship Seminar, Minneapolis, MN, March 2008.
Battaglia PW and Schrater PR (2008) Robust Bayesian framework for modeling
psychophysical tasks, Poster presented at Cosyne 2008, Utah, March 2008.
Schrater PR and Battaglia PW (2008) Characterizing reach strategies in ambiguous tasks,
Poster presented at Cosyne 2008, Utah, March 2008.
Battaglia PW, Schrater PR, Kersten DJ (2007) Humans control reach timing to balance
sensory and motor uncertainty and maximize reach accuracy, Talk presented at
Ann. Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society 2007, Sarasota, FL, May 2007.
Battaglia PW, Schrater PR, and Flister E (2005) Reach control strategies in tasks with
many viable targets, Poster presented at ESF-EMBO Symposium on 3D Sensory
and Motor Space, Sant Feliu de Guixols, Spain, October 2005.
Battaglia PW, Schrater PR, Kersten DJ (2005) Auxiliary object knowledge influences
visually-guided interception behavior. Talk presented at International
Workshop on Mathematical, Computational, and Applied Aspects of Computer
Vision and Pattern Recognition. Lotus Hill Institute for Computer Vision &
Pattern Recognition, Ezhou, China, August 2005.
Battaglia PW, Schrater PR, Kersten DJ (2005) A Bayesian theory for intercepting objects
moving in 3D, Poster presented at Ann. Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society
2005, Sarasota, FL, May 2005.
Aslin RN, Jacobs RA, Battaglia PW (2003) Depth-dependent contrast gain-control.
Talk presented at Ann. Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society 2003, Sarasota,
FL.
FELLOWSHIPS AND GRANTS
Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA for Individual Postdoctoral Fellows, NIH, 2008-2010.
Student Travel Award, VSS, 2008.
Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, University of Minnesota, 2007-2008.
Graduate Summer School fellowship, UCLA IPAM, 2007.
Gough Travel Award, University of Minnesota, 2005.
Graduate Summer School and workshop fellowship, US NSF & Chinese NSF, 2005.
Graduate Research Fellowship, NSF, 2004-2007.
Graduate School Fellowship, University of Minnesota, 2003-2004.
PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES
Symposia
Organizer, Symposium titled 'Vision meets Cognition: Functionality, Physics,
Intentionality, and Causality', 26th IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and
Pattern Recognition, Columbus, OH, 2014.
Organizer, Symposium titled 'Computational models of intuitive physics',
Ann. Meeting of the Cognitive Sciences Society 2012, Sapporo, Japan, 2012.
Organizer, Symposium titled 'Bayesian models applied to perceptual behavior',
Ann. Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society 2008, Naples FL, 2008.