Understanding Higher Order Color: Beyond the Cardinal Mechanisms

了解高阶颜色：超越基本机制

• 批准号: 1353338
• 负责人: Rhea Eskew
• 金额: $ 47.84万
• 依托单位: Northeastern University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-02-15 至 2018-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1353338&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Understanding; Higher; Order; Color; Beyond

Humans typically rely on vision as their primary sense in their interactions with the world. Understanding how higher-order cortical brain processes contribute to human visual perception is a critical issue in cognitive science. Color offers a unique opportunity for understanding the brain mechanisms of perception because the very first step in color processing, the absorption of light by cells in the retina (photoreceptors), is fully understood. This knowledge allows the color scientist to manipulate early signals in the nervous system and measure the perceptual result. Perceptual and neurophysiological experiments have shown that signals from the different photoreceptors in the eye are combined, approximately by addition and subtraction. Our ability to see colors and to discriminate one color from another are the result of these neural sums and differences. For about the past half-century, perceptual scientists have tried to understand the number and nature of these neural color mechanisms: Are there few color mechanisms or many? Do they just add and subtract photoreceptor signals or do they perform more complex calculations? The present work combines computational modeling with novel experimental techniques and strategies. In some cases, random visual flickering elements will appear over a test stimulus. If the noise and test are processed through the same color mechanisms, the noise should hinder the ability of a person to see the test color (by a process like camouflage). If the noise and test are processed in separate mechanisms, the noise should have no effect on the ability to see the test at all. The properties of the color mechanisms will be quantitatively studied by varying the color of the noise relative to the test.Understanding how the brain processes color information is an important part of the more general understanding of how we perceive the world around us. There are practical applications of this research as well: Color is an important part of signaling systems and information displays. Having a quantitative model of color vision will help the designer of cockpit and automotive displays, medical information and imaging displays, and even digital television systems, to more efficiently and accurately convey information to users.

人类通常依靠视力作为他们与世界互动的主要意义。了解高阶皮质大脑过程如何有助于人类的视觉感知是认知科学中的关键问题。色彩为理解感知的机制提供了独特的机会，因为颜色加工的第一步，即视网膜中的细胞吸收光（感光体）的光吸收。这些知识使颜色科学家可以操纵神经系统中的早期信号并衡量感知结果。感知和神经生理实验表明，来自眼睛中不同感光体的信号大约是通过加法和减法组合的。我们看到颜色并区分另一种颜色的能力是这些神经和差异的结果。在过去的半个世纪中，感知科学家试图理解这些神经颜色机制的数量和性质：几乎没有颜色机制或很多？他们只是添加和减去感光信号还是执行更复杂的计算？目前的工作将计算建模与新颖的实验技术和策略相结合。在某些情况下，随机视觉闪烁元件将出现在测试刺激上。如果噪声和测试是通过相同的颜色机制处理的，则噪声应阻碍人们看到测试颜色的能力（通过伪装这样的过程）。如果以单独的机制处理噪声和测试，则噪声应该对观察测试的能力没有影响。颜色机制的性能将通过改变噪声相对于测试的颜色来定量研究。理解大脑处理颜色信息是对我们如何看待我们周围世界的更一般理解的重要组成部分。这项研究也有实际应用：颜色是信号系统和信息显示的重要组成部分。拥有彩色视觉的定量模型将有助于驾驶舱和汽车展示，医疗信息和成像显示器，甚至数字电视系统的设计师，以更有效，准确地将信息传达给用户。