Mid-level mechanisms of surface and binocular perception

表面和双眼感知的中层机制

• 批准号: 9328096
• 负责人: Zijiang He
• 金额: $ 35.61万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-08-01 至 2019-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9328096
• 关键词: 3-Dimensional; Affect; Aging; Amblyopia; Attention; Behavioral; Clinical; Code; Color; Complex; Crowding; Diagnosis; Ensure; Environment; Eye; Feedback; Frequencies; Functional disorder; Goals; Grant; Human; Image; Knowledge; Link; Location; Measurement; Motion; Occupations; Ownership; Pattern; Perception; Perceptual learning; Play; Process; Property; Protocols documentation; Psychophysics; Research; Resolution; Retinal; Role; Space Perception; Strabismus; Surface; System; Testing; Texture; Time; Training; Visual; Visual Perception; Visual system structure; detector; experimental study; falls; feeding; imaging properties; improved; luminance; neurophysiology; noninvasive diagnosis; object perception; object shape; operation; public health relevance; visual information; visual processing; visual stimulus

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Retinal images are inherently fragmentary and ambiguous because images of separate entities overlap. But the early visual mechanisms are not equipped to parse the overlapping 2-D retinal images into distinct 3-D entities. The job of parsing these images falls on the mid-level mechanisms, whose main role is to represent the distinct entities as separate surfaces. The represented surface information then serves as inputs to the WHAT and WHERE systems that underlie our 3-D perception of objects and space, respectively. As such, the mid-level mechanisms are not just simple "conduits" of information between early and late level visual mechanisms but play a crucial role in determining the quality and reliability of the visual information conveyed. Compared to other aspects of visual processing, less is known about the mid-level mechanisms. One of the biggest challenges is to discover how the often fragmentary and ambiguous retinal information is transformed into reliable surface representations, presumably, through a spreading-in operation. At times, when an image belonging to the same entity is broken into parts due to occlusion, a surface interpolation operation is required to integrate the parts into a global surface. Moreover, inputs from the two eyes that contribute to these operations can be disparate in content and location. In the face of the myriad complexities of the visual inputs, it is further proposed that the mid-level mechanisms must rely on internal assumptions (perceptual rules) and feedbacks from the higher visual levels for guidance in representing surfaces. But how these operations are accomplished is still unclear. Remedying it, this proposal uses the human psychophysical approach to investigate the above issues by focusing on three specific aims. Aim 1 investigates how the spreading-in operation represents surfaces with texture patterns, which is more complex than representing texture-free surfaces. It is proposed the principle of reducing coding redundancy that governs the spreading-in operation causes the global surface representation operation to be efficient but prone to poor resolution. The latter could be one basis of the well-known "crowding effect" phenomenon. Aim 2 investigates the texture-surface interpolation operation. Cognizant of the roles of attention and object knowledge, the research investigates how these top-down factors influence surface integration. Aim 3 investigates the long-term plasticity of the mid-level mechanisms. Perceptual learning experiments will be conducted to reveal how extensive training modifies the perceptual rules implemented at the mid-level. The long-term goal of this proposal is to advance our knowledge of how visual information is processed and represented by the mid-level mechanisms. This knowledge helps us better understand how humans perceive the visual world, and provides a clinical basis for behavioral diagnoses and treatments of visual dysfunctions related to amblyopia, strabismus and aging.

描述（由申请人提供）：视网膜图像本质上是零碎的和模棱两可的，因为单独实体的图像重叠。但是，早期的视觉机制没有能够将重叠的2-D视网膜图像解析为不同的3D实体。解析这些图像的工作属于中层机制，其主要作用是将不同的实体表示为单独的表面。然后，代表的表面信息是分别是对象和空间感知的系统的输入。因此，中级机制不仅是早期和晚期视觉机制之间信息的简单“管道”，而且在确定传达的视觉信息的质量和可靠性方面起着至关重要的作用。与视觉处理的其他方面相比，对中层机制的了解较少。最大的挑战之一是发现如何通过扩散操作将通常碎片性和模棱两可的视网膜信息转化为可靠的表面表示。有时，当属于同一实体的图像由于遮挡而被分成部分时，需要进行表面插值操作才能将零件整合到全局表面。此外，从两只眼睛中造成这些操作的输入可能在内容和位置上是不同的。面对视觉输入的众多复杂性，进一步提出，中层机制必须依靠内部假设（感知规则）和来自较高视觉级别的反馈来代表表面。但是如何完成这些操作仍不清楚。对此进行补救，该提案采用人类心理物理方法来调查上述问题，通过重点关注三个特定目标。 AIM 1研究了传播操作如何用纹理模式表示表面，这比表示无纹理表面更为复杂。有人提出了减少控制扩散操作的编码冗余的原则，这会导致全球表面表示操作有效，但易于分辨率。后者可能是众所周知的“拥挤效应”现象的基础。 AIM 2研究纹理表面插值操作。认识到注意力和对象知识的作用，研究研究了这些自上而下的因素如何影响表面整合。 AIM 3研究了中层机制的长期可塑性。将进行感知学习实验，以揭示广泛的培训如何修改中级实施的感知规则。该建议的长期目标是促进我们对中级机制处理和代表视觉信息的了解。这些知识有助于我们更好地了解人类如何看待视觉世界，并为与弱视，斜视和衰老有关的视觉功能障碍的行为诊断和治疗提供了临床基础。