Mechanisms of Avian Visual Perception, Cognition, and Action

鸟类视觉感知、认知和行动的机制

• 批准号: 8345187
• 负责人: Robert G Cook
• 金额: $ 18.82万
• 依托单位: TUFTS UNIVERSITY MEDFORD
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-09-30 至 2015-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8345187
• 关键词: Address; Animals; Behavior; Behavioral; Birds; Brain; Classification; Cognition; Cognitive Science; Columbidae; Complex; Control Animal; Depth Perception; Development; Discrimination Learning; Goals; Group Processes; Grouping; Human; Learning; Light; Lighting; Location; Mediating; Methods; Modality; Modeling; Modification; Monkeys; Motion; Movement; Organism; Pattern; Pattern Recognition Systems; Perception; Perch; Procedures; Process; Prosthesis; Psychophysiology; Research; Retina; Route; Sensory; Shadowing (Histology); Shapes; Signal Transduction; Solutions; Stimulus; Sturnus vulgaris; Surface; System; Techniques; Testing; The Sun; Vision; Vision Disorders; Vision research; Visual; Visual Acuity; Visual Perception; Visual system structure; Work; base; comparative; design; digital; experience; innovation; mimetics; neuromechanism; object perception; pressure; psychologic; relating to nervous system; research study; robotic device; sensor; technique development; theories; therapy development; vision science; visual cognition; visual information; visual object processing; visual performance; visual process; visual processing; visual stimulus

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Vision is one of the enduring puzzles of modern cognitive science and elucidating the mechanisms of visual object perception presents a particular challenge. Nothing in the reflected light that arrives at the retina contains direct information about the location, shape, size, or number of objects in view. Understanding how the brain processes visual stimuli to derive this information would be a major advance in visual science. Because birds are active and mobile, avian visual systems must resolve the same problems that have driven theoretical advances in human and machine vision research. Examining these issues in such small, non-mammalian systems adds substantially to the development of a unified general theory of vision. Using our well-developed psychophysical techniques based on discrimination learning, we propose to evaluate this problem by examining in how starlings and pigeons process visual stimuli in controlled analytical contexts. This will be the first parallel comparison of visual processing in two avian species. The overall objective of this application is to investigate and compare how these species solve central problems of visual cognition and object perception as related to the processing of illumination and shading, edge processing and figural grouping, and the recognition and classification of behavior and action. Our specific aims include: 1) equating our procedures for the comparative examination of visual processing in these species; 2) examining the processing of surface shading and its contributions to object and depth perception; 3) examining edge and figural grouping processes in shape perception; and 4) examining the mechanisms of visually-mediated action and movement recognition. The current project is a part of our long-term objective to understand the proximate psychological, computational and neural mechanisms by which different pattern recognition systems perceive, recognize, categorize, integrate, understand, and respond to complex visual information. The unique combination of visual power, small size, and different neural organization exemplified by birds offers a special scientific opportunity for better understanding this extremely important sensory modality and how it functions and is implemented across different classes of animals. This comparison will address whether there are only a few biologically plausible mechanisms for rapid visual processing of objects or whether there are multiple routes to functional vision in highly mobile organisms. Because there is strong evolutionary pressure for highly efficient and rapid computation of visual information placed on the small, highly visual brain of birds, our results will contribute directly to the pracical development of treatments, corrective solutions or prostheses for humans with a variety of visual disorders and to the design of visual sensors for self-guided bio-mimetic robotic devices. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Visual perception is critical to virtually every aspect of human behavior. Using new modifications to a behavioral approach that has consistently yielded important information about vision and its mechanisms, the primary goal of our proposed research is the comparative analysis of visual perception of objects and movement in two bird species. We expect that our results will constitute a significant advance in our understanding of visual object perception and contribute to treatments or corrective solutions for humans suffering from a wide variety of visual disorders or deficits.

描述（由申请人提供）：视觉是现代认知科学的持久难题之一，阐明视觉物体感知的机制是一个特殊的挑战。在到达视网膜的反射光中，没有任何东西包含关于视野中物体的位置、形状、大小或数量的直接信息。了解大脑如何处理视觉刺激来获得这些信息将是视觉科学的一个重大进步。由于鸟类是活跃和移动的，鸟类视觉系统必须解决同样的问题，推动人类和机器视觉研究的理论进步。在如此小的非哺乳动物系统中检查这些问题大大增加了统一的视觉一般理论的发展。使用我们发达的心理物理学技术的基础上的歧视学习，我们建议评估这个问题，通过检查椋鸟和鸽子的过程中的视觉刺激在控制分析的情况下。这将是 首次对两种鸟类的视觉处理进行平行比较。本申请的总体目标是调查和比较这些物种如何解决与光照和阴影处理，边缘处理和图形分组以及行为和动作的识别和分类相关的视觉认知和物体感知的中心问题。我们的具体目标包括：1）将我们的程序等同于这些物种的视觉处理的比较检查; 2）检查表面阴影的处理及其对物体和深度感知的贡献; 3）检查形状感知中的边缘和图形分组过程;以及4）检查视觉介导的动作和运动识别的机制。目前的项目是我们长期目标的一部分，以了解不同的模式识别系统感知，识别，分类，整合，理解和响应复杂的视觉信息的近端心理，计算和神经机制。以鸟类为例的视觉能力，小尺寸和不同神经组织的独特组合提供了一个特殊的科学机会，可以更好地理解这种极其重要的感觉方式，以及它如何在不同类别的动物中发挥作用。这种比较将解决是否只有几个生物学上合理的机制，快速视觉处理的对象，或是否有多个路线的功能性视觉在高度移动的生物体。由于有强大的进化压力，高效和快速计算的视觉信息放在小，高度视觉的大脑的鸟类，我们的研究结果将直接有助于实际发展的治疗，矫正解决方案或假肢的人类与各种视觉障碍和视觉传感器的设计自我引导仿生机器人设备。 公共卫生相关性：视觉感知对人类行为的几乎每个方面都至关重要。使用新的修改行为的方法，一直产生重要的信息，视觉及其机制，我们提出的研究的主要目标是比较分析的视觉感知的对象和运动在两种鸟类。我们希望我们的研究结果将在我们对视觉物体感知的理解方面取得重大进展，并为患有各种视觉障碍或缺陷的人类提供治疗或矫正解决方案。