Receptive field focus of visual area V4 neurons determines responses to illusory surfaces
Receptive field focus of visual area V4 neurons determines responses to illusory surfaces
复制标题
DOI：
10.1073/pnas.1310806110
复制
发表时间：
2013-10-15
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Maier, Alexander
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Cox, Michele A.;Schmid, Michael C.;Maier, Alexander
错觉图形展示了视觉系统在零碎的感觉输入条件下推断表面的能力。为了研究中级视觉区V4在视觉表面完成中的作用，我们使用多电极阵列来测量两种类型的视觉刺激的尖峰反应：Kanizsa模式，诱导错觉表面的感知和物理上类似的控制刺激，不。与对照组相比，V4神经元对促进错觉的结构表现出更强的，有时是有节奏的尖峰反应。此外，这种升高的反应依赖于神经元的峰值视野敏感度（感受野焦点）与错觉表面本身的精确对准。神经元的感受野的重点是在相邻的诱导元素，小于1.5度远，没有表现出反应增强的错觉。无论是感受野的大小，也没有固定的眼球运动可以解释这种影响，这是目前在单单位信号和多单位活动。这些结果表明，表面和形状的主动感知完成，这是一个基本的问题，在自然的视觉体验，利用选择性增强的活动在皮层V4区的神经元的一个不同的亚群。
Illusory figures demonstrate the visual system's ability to infer surfaces under conditions of fragmented sensory input. To investigate the role of midlevel visual area V4 in visual surface completion, we used multielectrode arrays to measure spiking responses to two types of visual stimuli: Kanizsa patterns that induce the perception of an illusory surface and physically similar control stimuli that do not. Neurons in V4 exhibited stronger and sometimes rhythmic spiking responses for the illusion-promoting configurations compared with controls. Moreover, this elevated response depended on the precise alignment of the neuron's peak visual field sensitivity (receptive field focus) with the illusory surface itself. Neurons whose receptive field focus was over adjacent inducing elements, less than 1.5 degrees away, did not show response enhancement to the illusion. Neither receptive field sizes nor fixational eye movements could account for this effect, which was present in both single-unit signals and multiunit activity. These results suggest that the active perceptual completion of surfaces and shapes, which is a fundamental problem in natural visual experience, draws upon the selective enhancement of activity within a distinct subpopulation of neurons in cortical area V4.