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Proceedings of the National Academy of... Jul 2021Recurrent loops in the visual cortex play a critical role in visual perception, which is likely not mediated by purely feed-forward pathways. However, the development of...
Recurrent loops in the visual cortex play a critical role in visual perception, which is likely not mediated by purely feed-forward pathways. However, the development of recurrent loops is poorly understood. The role of recurrent processing has been studied using visual backward masking, a perceptual phenomenon in which a visual stimulus is rendered invisible by a following mask, possibly because of the disruption of recurrent processing. Anatomical studies have reported that recurrent pathways are immature in early infancy. This raises the possibility that younger infants process visual information mainly in a feed-forward manner, and thus, they might be able to perceive visual stimuli that adults cannot see because of backward masking. Here, we show that infants under 7 mo of age are immune to visual backward masking and that masked stimuli remain visible to younger infants while older infants cannot perceive them. These results suggest that recurrent processing is immature in infants under 7 mo and that they are able to perceive objects even without recurrent processing. Our findings indicate that the algorithm for visual perception drastically changes in the second half of the first year of life.
Topics: Facial Recognition; Female; Form Perception; Humans; Infant; Male; Perceptual Masking; Photic Stimulation; Reproducibility of Results; Visual Perception
PubMed: 34162737
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2103040118 -
Scientific Reports Jan 2023Visual perception can be modified by the surrounding context. Particularly, experimental observations have demonstrated that visual perception and primary visual...
Visual perception can be modified by the surrounding context. Particularly, experimental observations have demonstrated that visual perception and primary visual cortical responses could be modified by properties of surrounding distractors. However, the underlying mechanism remains unclear. To simulate primary visual cortical activities in this paper, we design a k-winner-take-all (k-WTA) spiking network whose responses are generated through probabilistic inference. In simulations, images with the same target and various surrounding distractors perform as stimuli. Distractors are designed with multiple varying properties, including the luminance, the sizes and the distances to the target. Simulations for each varying property are performed with other properties fixed. Each property could modify second-layer neural responses and interactions in the network. To the same target in the designed images, the modified network responses could simulate distinguishing brightness perception consistent with experimental observations. Our model provides a possible explanation of how the surrounding distractors modify primary visual cortical responses to induce various brightness perception of the given target.
Topics: Visual Perception; Photic Stimulation
PubMed: 36707550
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-28326-4 -
Journal of Vision Aug 2007Visual clutter concerns designers of user interfaces and information visualizations. This should not surprise visual perception researchers because excess and/or...
Visual clutter concerns designers of user interfaces and information visualizations. This should not surprise visual perception researchers because excess and/or disorganized display items can cause crowding, masking, decreased recognition performance due to occlusion, greater difficulty at both segmenting a scene and performing visual search, and so on. Given a reliable measure of the visual clutter in a display, designers could optimize display clutter. Furthermore, a measure of visual clutter could help generalize models like Guided Search (J. M. Wolfe, 1994) by providing a substitute for "set size" more easily computable on more complex and natural imagery. In this article, we present and test several measures of visual clutter, which operate on arbitrary images as input. The first is a new version of the Feature Congestion measure of visual clutter presented in R. Rosenholtz, Y. Li, S. Mansfield, and Z. Jin (2005). This Feature Congestion measure of visual clutter is based on the analogy that the more cluttered a display or scene is, the more difficult it would be to add a new item that would reliably draw attention. A second measure of visual clutter, Subband Entropy, is based on the notion that clutter is related to the visual information in the display. Finally, we test a third measure, Edge Density, used by M. L. Mack and A. Oliva (2004) as a measure of subjective visual complexity. We explore the use of these measures as stand-ins for set size in visual search models and demonstrate that they correlate well with search performance in complex imagery. This includes the search-in-clutter displays of J. M. Wolfe, A. Oliva, T. S. Horowitz, S. Butcher, and A. Bompas (2002) and Bravo and Farid (2004), as well as new search experiments. An additional experiment suggests that color variability, accounted for by Feature Congestion but not the Edge Density measure or the Subband Entropy measure, does matter for visual clutter.
Topics: Attention; Color Perception; Contrast Sensitivity; Entropy; Humans; Models, Psychological; Pattern Recognition, Visual; Perceptual Masking; Space Perception; Visual Perception
PubMed: 18217832
DOI: 10.1167/7.2.17 -
Current Biology : CB Apr 2012If perception is hypothesis, where do the hypotheses come from? A new study suggests that the human visual system uses the history of past stimulation to predict its...
If perception is hypothesis, where do the hypotheses come from? A new study suggests that the human visual system uses the history of past stimulation to predict its current input.
Topics: Humans; Orientation; Pattern Recognition, Visual; Vision, Binocular; Visual Perception
PubMed: 22497935
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2012.02.019 -
Cortex; a Journal Devoted To the Study... Jul 2021Memory research has identified many strategies to enhance memory. However, natural foundations of enhanced memory are vastly underexplored. Interestingly, numerous...
Memory research has identified many strategies to enhance memory. However, natural foundations of enhanced memory are vastly underexplored. Interestingly, numerous studies show that synesthesia is associated with enhanced memory performance. Although it has been hypothesized for years that wider changes in visual perception are closely linked with enhanced memory functions in synesthesia, the hypothesis has never been directly put to the test. Here, we investigated whether visual perceptual abilities in synesthesia are linked with higher memory performance by comparing synesthetes who experience colors for letters with non-synesthetic color experts and non-synesthetic individuals from the more general population. Our results showed that synesthesia and expertise share a common profile of enhanced visual perceptual ability and memory in contrast to non-synesthetic individuals from the more general population. Overall, our findings suggest that visual perception and visual memory are more closely connected than previously thought.
Topics: Color Perception; Humans; Memory, Short-Term; Pattern Recognition, Visual; Perceptual Disorders; Photic Stimulation; Synesthesia; Visual Perception
PubMed: 33905967
DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2021.01.024 -
Current Biology : CB Feb 2011A recent study shows that objects changing in colour, luminance, size or shape appear to stop changing when they move. These and other compelling illusions provide...
A recent study shows that objects changing in colour, luminance, size or shape appear to stop changing when they move. These and other compelling illusions provide tantalizing clues about the mechanisms and limitations of object analysis.
Topics: Color; Humans; Illusions; Motion; Pattern Recognition, Visual; Visual Perception
PubMed: 21334297
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2011.01.007 -
Perception 1978An attempt is made to list the visual phenomena exploited in op art. These include moire frinlude moiré fringes, afterimages, Hermann grid effects, Gestalt grouping...
An attempt is made to list the visual phenomena exploited in op art. These include moire frinlude moiré fringes, afterimages, Hermann grid effects, Gestalt grouping principles, blurring and movement due to astigmatic fluctuations in accommodation, scintillation and streaming possibly due to eye movements, and visual persistence. The historical origins of these phenomena are also noted.
Topics: Afterimage; Art; Humans; Motion Perception; Optical Illusions; Pattern Recognition, Visual; Perceptual Closure; Visual Perception
PubMed: 628578
DOI: 10.1068/p070021 -
Nature
Topics: Depth Perception; Humans; Vision, Ocular; Visual Acuity; Visual Perception
PubMed: 6700725
DOI: 10.1038/308228a0 -
Ophthalmic & Physiological Optics : the... Sep 1999The perception of Moiré fringes is studied with two different tests for binocular and monocular conditions. The results are negative for binocular conditions, and...
The perception of Moiré fringes is studied with two different tests for binocular and monocular conditions. The results are negative for binocular conditions, and positive for the monocular case when afterimages are used.
Topics: Adult; Afterimage; Female; Humans; Male; Moire Topography; Vision, Binocular; Vision, Monocular; Visual Perception
PubMed: 10768023
DOI: 10.1046/j.1475-1313.1999.00461.x -
Current Biology : CB Jun 2009Although we don't perceive visual stimuli during saccadic eye movements, new evidence shows that our brains do process these stimuli and they can influence our...
Although we don't perceive visual stimuli during saccadic eye movements, new evidence shows that our brains do process these stimuli and they can influence our subsequent visual perception.
Topics: Fixation, Ocular; Humans; Perceptual Masking; Saccades; Time Factors; Visual Perception
PubMed: 19549498
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2009.05.010