Contextual influences on object recognition investigated by means of steady-state visual evoked potentials

通过稳态视觉诱发电位研究上下文对物体识别的影响

基本信息

批准号：
325597884
负责人：
Professor Dr. Thomas Gruber
金额：
--
依托单位：
Norddeutsches Epilepsiezentrum Raisdorf
依托单位国家：
德国
项目类别：
Research Grants
财政年份：
2016
资助国家：
德国
起止时间：
2015-12-31 至 2019-12-31
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/325597884?language=en
关键词：
Contextual influences object recognition investigated

项目摘要

The present research proposal aims at investigating how context information influences object recognition. Contextual information can be provided by means of a scenic background or by semantic associations between several objects. Both scenarios are characterized by the perception of the so-called "gist" of the visual input, i.e. the perception of the general meaning of a scene. Up-today, the neuronal mechanisms underlying these contextual influences on object recognition are not well understood. One reason for this shortcoming lies in the methodological problem to separate the brain response elicited by a context from the cortical activation related to a target object. More precisely, conventional neuroscientific methods (e.g. BOLD signals) solely mirror the intermingled signal to all constituting elements of a multi-stimulus display. We intend to overcome this limitation by making use of the steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP), a specific technique in electroencephalogram (EEG) research. Besides other advantages, the SSVEP method can disentangle neuronal responses elicited by simultaneously presented stimuli by means of tagging each stimulus with an individual driving frequency (for example by presenting a familiar object at 12 Hz and a related scenic background at 9 Hz). Next, the EEG signal is transformed to its spectral components (in the above example the 12 Hz object response and the 9 Hz background response). We suggest conducting six experiments thereby taking advantage of the SSVEP methods major strengths. These experiments aim at answering the following two main research questions: (1) What are the neuronal underpinnings of objects recognition in context? (2) Which basic cognitive functions underlie contextual influences on object recognition (e.g. specific memory processes)? To sum, the proposed research project will provide systematic information about neuronal and cognitive mechanisms of object recognition under natural viewing conditions (i.e. with contextual information). The suggested experiments will thereby complement and extend current knowledge derived from studying object recognition in isolation (i.e. without context).

本研究建议旨在调查上下文信息如何影响对象识别。可以通过风景秀丽的背景或几个对象之间的语义关联提供上下文信息。这两种情况的特征在于对视觉输入的所谓“要点”的感知，即对场景的一般含义的感知。在这些上下文对象识别的上下文影响背后的神经元机制尚未得到充分了解。这种缺点的原因之一在于方法论问题是将上下文引起的大脑反应与与目标对象相关的皮质激活产生的大脑反应。更确切地说，常规的神经科学方法（例如粗体信号）仅将相互融合的信号映射到多刺显示的所有构成元素。我们打算通过利用稳态视觉诱发电位（SSVEP）来克服这一局限性，这是一种特定的脑电图研究（EEG）研究。除其他优势外，SSVEP方法还可以通过以单个驱动频率标记每种刺激（例如，通过在12 Hz中呈现一个熟悉的对象，在9 Hz的相关风景背景中呈现一个熟悉的对象，可以通过同时呈现刺激引起的神经元反应。接下来，将EEG信号转换为其光谱成分（在上面的12 Hz对象响应和9 Hz背景响应中）。我们建议进行六个实验，从而利用SSVEP方法的主要优势。这些实验旨在回答以下两个主要研究问题：（1）在上下文中，对象识别的神经元基础是什么？（2）哪些基本认知功能是对对象识别（例如特定内存过程）的上下文影响的基础？总而言之，拟议的研究项目将提供有关自然观察条件下对象识别的神经元和认知机制（即带有上下文信息）的系统信息。因此，建议的实验将补充并扩展从孤立研究对象识别（即没有上下文）中得出的当前知识。