Construction of invariant shape selectivity in the ventral visual stream

腹侧视觉流中不变形状选择性的构建

• 批准号: 7995177
• 负责人: James J DiCarlo
• 金额: $ 39.07万
• 依托单位: MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2004
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2004-04-01 至 2014-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7995177
• 关键词: Address; Adult; Anterior; Area; Brain; Categories; Chronic; Computer Simulation; Development; Electrodes; Eye; Funding; Goals; Human; Image; Inferior; Lead; Learning; Lighting; Longitudinal Studies; Methods; Monkeys; Movement; Neurons; Neurosciences; Pattern; Personal Satisfaction; Population; Population Dynamics; Positioning Attribute; Primates; Problem Solving; Process; Property; Psychophysics; Research; Retinal; Role; Sampling; Series; Shapes; Staging; Stream; Temporal Lobe; Testing; Time; Visual; Visual attention; Visual system structure; Work; area V4; awake; comparative; experience; extrastriate visual cortex; feeding; neuronal patterning; neurophysiology; nonhuman primate; object recognition; population based; public health relevance; research study; visual information; visual stimulus

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A fundamental goal of perceptual neuroscience is to understand the neuronal representations that underlie our remarkable ability to perceive, recognize, and remember visual objects. In humans and non-human primates, these representations are produced by processing along the ventral visual stream, and conveyed by patterns of neuronal activity in its highest level -- the monkey inferior temporal cortex (IT). The key computational problem the ventral stream solves is that it produces an IT neuronal representation of visual images that conveys selectivity for object identity and category, with tolerance ("invariance") to changes in object position, size, pose, illumination and clutter. Indeed, although the shape selectivity properties of the ventral stream have received much study, we know very little about the mechanisms that construct that tolerance. The goal of this proposal is a mechanistic understanding of how the ventral visual stream constructs the tolerant ("invariant") visual shape selectivity that underlies our object recognition abilities. In Aim 1 we ask: does naturally-acquired temporally contiguous experience "instruct" the formation of tolerance in the ventral stream? We have recently discovered that the tolerance of IT neuronal shape selectivity can be strongly and rapidly sculpted by altered temporal contiguity of unsupervised visual object experience. In this aim, we will use a series of closely-related visual experience manipulations to systematically test and characterize the role of this plasticity in position, size, and pose tolerance learning. This will illuminate its role in instructing adult visual object representation, and set the stage for longer-term studies of how these powerful representations are assembled during early development. In Aim 2 we will take a comparative approach to ask how object information is transformed across two ventral stream areas (V4 vs. IT). Using the same monkeys, same task, and same visual stimuli, we will use neuronal population methods to ask: How is the tolerance of the IT representation changed from the V4 representation? Is V4 shape selectivity preserved in the IT representation? Does the sparseness of visual representation change from V4 to IT? How does tolerant shape selectivity evolve in real time? Together, these experiments will inform a central question: "How is the tolerant object selectivity in IT built from earlier visual representation?", and the results will provide strong constraints on computational models of the ventral visual stream and guide our understanding of cortical information transformation more generally. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Visual object recognition is fundamental to our well-being and our brain is remarkably good at solving this problem even though the same object can appear very differently to our eyes. The overarching goal of these experiments is a mechanistic understanding of how the visual system constructs the patterns of neuronal activity that solve this problem. This will lead to an understanding of the brain processes that allow us to see and evaluate the visual world (e.g. recognize and remember objects).

描述（由申请人提供）：感知神经科学的一个基本目标是理解构成我们感知、识别和记忆视觉对象的非凡能力的神经元表征。在人类和非人类灵长类动物中，这些表征是通过沿着腹侧视觉流进行处理而产生的，并通过其最高层——猴子下颞叶皮层（IT）的神经元活动模式来传达。腹侧流解决的关键计算问题是，它产生视觉图像的 IT 神经元表示，传达对象身份和类别的选择性，并对对象位置、大小、姿势、照明和杂乱的变化具有容忍度（“不变性”）。事实上，尽管腹侧流的形状选择性特性已经得到了很多研究，但我们对构建这种耐受性的机制知之甚少。该提案的目标是机械地理解腹侧视觉流如何构建作为我们物体识别能力基础的宽容（“不变”）视觉形状选择性。在目标 1 中，我们问：自然获得的时间连续经验是否“指导”腹侧流中耐受性的形成？我们最近发现，IT 神经元形状选择性的耐受性可以通过改变无监督视觉对象体验的时间连续性来强烈而快速地塑造。为此，我们将使用一系列密切相关的视觉体验操作来系统地测试和表征这种可塑性在位置、大小和姿势容差学习中的作用。这将阐明其在指导成人视觉对象表征中的作用，并为长期研究这些强大的表征在早期发育过程中如何组装奠定基础。在目标 2 中，我们将采用比较方法来询问物体信息如何在两个腹侧流区域（V4 与 IT）之间转换。使用相同的猴子、相同的任务和相同的视觉刺激，我们将使用神经元群体方法来问：IT表示的容忍度与V4表示相比有何变化？ IT 表示中是否保留了 V4 形状选择性？从 V4 到 IT，视觉表示的稀疏性是否发生变化？宽容的形状选择性是如何实时演变的？总之，这些实验将揭示一个中心问题：“信息技术中的容忍对象选择性是如何从早期的视觉表征中构建出来的？”，其结果将为腹侧视觉流的计算模型提供强有力的约束，并指导我们对皮质信息转换的理解更一般地说。 公共健康相关性：视觉对象识别对于我们的福祉至关重要，我们的大脑非常擅长解决这个问题，即使同一对象在我们的眼睛中看起来可能非常不同。这些实验的首要目标是从机械角度理解视觉系统如何构建解决该问题的神经元活动模式。这将有助于理解大脑的过程，使我们能够看到和评估视觉世界（例如识别和记住物体）。