Parallel Processing in the Visual System

Parallel Processing in the Visual System
Author: Jonathan Stone
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 439
Release: 2013-03-08
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1468444336

In the mid-sixties, John Robson and Christina Enroth-Cugell, without realizing what they were doing, set off a virtual revolution in the study of the visual system. They were trying to apply the methods of linear systems analysis (which were already being used to describe the optics of the eye and the psychophysical performance of the human visual system) to the properties of retinal ganglion cells in the cat. Their idea was to stimulate the retina with patterns of stripes and to look at the way that the signals from the center and the antagonistic surround of the respective field of each ganglion cell (first described by Stephen Kuffier) interact to generate the cell's responses. Many of the ganglion cells behaved themselves very nicely and John and Christina got into the habit (they now say) of calling them I (interesting) cells. However. to their annoyance, the majority of neurons they recorded had nasty, nonlinear properties that couldn't be predicted on the basis of simple summ4tion of light within the center and the surround. These uncoop erative ganglion cells, which Enroth-Cugell and Robson at first called D (dull) cells, produced transient bursts of impulses every time the distribution of light falling on the receptive field was changed, even if the total light flux was unaltered.

Applications of Parallel Processing in Vision

Applications of Parallel Processing in Vision
Author: J.R. Brannan
Publisher: Elsevier
Total Pages: 351
Release: 1992-01-23
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0080867405

Considerable evidence exists that visual sensory information is analyzed simultaneously along two or more independent pathways. In the past two decades, researchers have extensively used the concept of parallel visual channels as a framework to direct their explorations of human vision. More recently, basic and clinical scientists have found such a dichotomy applicable to the way we organize our knowledge of visual development, higher order perception, and visual disorders, to name just a few. This volume attempts to provide a forum for gathering these different perspectives.

The Primate Visual System

The Primate Visual System
Author: Jon H. Kaas
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 439
Release: 2003-07-28
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0203507592

The last 20 years of research have been marked by exceptional progress in understanding the organization and functions of the primate visual system. This understanding has been based on the wide application of traditional and newly emerging methods for identifying the functionally significant subdivisions of the system, their interconnections, the

Vision and the Visual System

Vision and the Visual System
Author: Peter H. Schiller
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 441
Release: 2015
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0199936536

'Vision and the Visual System' offers students, teachers and researchers a rigorous, yet accessible account of how the brain analyses the visual scene. Schiller and Tehovnik describe key aspects of visual perception such as colour, motion, pattern and depth while explaining the relationship between eye movements and neural structures in the brain.

Contributions of Early Parallel Pathways to Extrastriate Visual Cortex in Macaque Monkey

Contributions of Early Parallel Pathways to Extrastriate Visual Cortex in Macaque Monkey
Author: Jonathan J. Nassi
Publisher:
Total Pages: 159
Release: 2007
Genre:
ISBN:

All together, these studies provide strong evidence for the existence of multiple circuits between LGN and MT. Each pathway receives a different combination of M and P inputs and is uniquely suited to convey visual information with varying degrees of spatial and temporal resolution, contrast sensitivity, and color selectivity. Distinct cell types underlie many of these circuits, overcoming the lack of spatial compartmentalization of V1 outputs. Functional studies that can target these specialized cell types and circuits will be necessary to elucidate the contributions of each pathway to response properties in MT and, ultimately, to visual perception and behavior.

Higher-Order Processing in the Visual System

Higher-Order Processing in the Visual System
Author: Gregory R. Bock
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2008-04-30
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0470514620

Foremost neurophysiologists and psychophysicists provide pertinent information on the nature of representation at the earliest stages as this will constrain the disposition of all subsequent processing. This processing is discussed in several different types of visual perception.

Webvision

Webvision
Author: Helga Kolb
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2007
Genre:
ISBN:

Parallel and Competitive Processes in Low-Level Vision and Their Impact on Awareness

Parallel and Competitive Processes in Low-Level Vision and Their Impact on Awareness
Author: Rachel Denison
Publisher:
Total Pages: 81
Release: 2013
Genre:
ISBN:

Perception consists of the brain's single best interpretation of the sensory world at a given moment in time. Multiple channels of visual input - be they from the two eyes or from the many parallel visual pathways that originate as early as the retina - must be reconciled to arrive at a unified percept. The fact that this must occur in roughly real time as the visual scene changes poses special challenges and constraints. I investigated two classes of visual processes relevant for the perception of time-varying visual stimuli: prediction, with a probable neural substrate in early visual cortical areas, and parallel processing in the magnocellular (M) and parvocellular (P) pathways. In Chapters 2 and 3, I asked how prediction and parallel pathways, respectively, contribute to perceptual selection using dynamic binocular rivalry stimuli. In binocular rivalry, incompatible images presented to the two eyes result in just one of the images being selected for awareness at any given time. This bistability makes rivalry a useful tool for the study of perceptual selection. In Chapter 2, we found that predictive context in the form of an unambiguous rotating grating biased perceptual selection during subsequent rivalry towards the expected next grating in the rotation sequence, compared to an orthogonal grating. This provided evidence that a prediction-like process influences perceptual selection during rivalry between gratings, which other work has shown is likely resolved at early stages of visual processing. In Chapter 3, we studied spatial, temporal, luminance, and chromatic factors influencing perceptual selection during interocular switch rivalry. In this type of rivalry, flickering orthogonal gratings are periodically exchanged between the two eyes, resulting in either the perception of a fast, regular alternation between orthogonally oriented gratings (similar to the display presented to a single eye) or a slow, irregular alternation, a percept that requires integration across the two eyes over time. We found that stimuli biased toward the M pathway increased the prevalence of fast, regular alternations, while stimuli biased toward the P pathway increased the prevalence of slow, irregular alternations. This finding suggested that the M and P pathways can make distinct contributions to perception during binocular rivalry and led us to propose a new framework for understanding perceptual selection during interocular switch rivalry. Physiological measurement of activity in the M and P pathways can lead to greater understanding of how these pathways contribute to perceptual experience, but methods for measuring functional signals from the M and P pathways of humans have been lacking. Therefore, in Chapter 4, we developed a procedure for functionally mapping the M and P subdivisions of human LGN, the site where these pathways are most clearly segregated, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We observed a gradient of more M-like to more P-like responses across the LGN. Importantly, this gradient had a spatial layout consistent with known LGN anatomical organization. This new method for localizing the M and P subdivisions of the LGN provides a way forward for investigating the function of these pathways in human visual perception, in both healthy and clinical populations. In summary, prediction and parallel processing are two classes of mechanisms that contribute to perception of dynamic visual stimuli. Here we have shown how such mechanisms operating at low levels of the visual system can help resolve competition between percepts, thereby affecting the contents of visual awareness. In addition, we developed a method for the physiological study of the M and P LGN subdivisions in the human brain, which is a promising technique for the future investigation of the roles of the M and P pathways in human visual perception, among other applications.

Brain and Visual Perception

Brain and Visual Perception
Author: David H. Hubel M.D.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 739
Release: 2004-10-14
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0198039166

This is the story of a hugely successful and enjoyable 25-year collaboration between two scientists who set out to learn how the brain deals with the signals it receives from the two eyes. Their work opened up a new area of brain research that led to their receiving the Nobel Prize in 1981. The book contains their major papers from 1959 to 1981, each preceded and followed by comments telling how and why the authors went about the study, how the work was received, and what has happened since. It begins with short autobiographies of both men, and describes the state of the field when they started. It is intended not only for neurobiologists, but for anyone interested in how the brain works-biologists, psychologists, philosophers, physicists, historians of science, and students at all levels from high school to graduate level.

Visual Perception

Visual Perception
Author: Lothar Spillmann
Publisher: Elsevier
Total Pages: 550
Release: 2012-12-02
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0323138144

This book presents an interdisciplinary overview of the main facts and theories that guide contemporary research on visual perception. While the chapters cover virtually all areas of visual science, from philosophical foundations to computational algorithms, and from photoreceptor processes to neuronal networks, no attempt has been made to provide an exhaustive treatment of these topics. Rather, researchers from such diverse disciplines as psychology, neurophysiology, anatomy, and clinical vision sciences have worked together to review some of the most important correlations between perceptual phenomena and the underlying neurophysiological processes and mechanisms. The book is thus intended to serve as an advanced text for graduate students and as a guide for all vision researchers to understanding current progress outside their specialized fields of interest. ï Examines parallel processing of visual informationï Discusses links between physiologically-measured receptive fields and psychophysically-measured perceptive fieldsï Presents a spatial sampling by the retina and cortical modulesï Covers signal transduction and the sites of adaptationï Describes a single-cell analysis of attentionï Discusses computational models of vision