Active Visual Depth Perception by Looming

这个提议是一个测量和模拟夜行鹰蛾（Manduca sexta）视神经节（主要是小脑）细胞隐现反应的项目。当飞蛾在花朵前盘旋觅食时，风会使花朵在飞蛾的视野中移动。提出的实验有两种：第一，对各种各样的视觉刺激的反应将记录细胞内和细胞外的隐现神经元，以测试隐现反应的触发因素是刺激亮度的变化，周长的变化，还是由于视觉流场的变化。其次，将构建这些神经元反应的计算机模型，并使用等效的“刺激”进行测试。计划用真实的图像来测试模型，将树叶或花朵在风中摆动的视频输入模型。这种计算机模型的一个非常实际的未来用途可能是机器（机器人）视觉和神经形态芯片。

This proposal is a project to measure and model looming responses of cellsin the optic ganglia (primarily the lobula) of the night-flying hawk moth,Manduca sexta. When the moth hovers in front of a flower to feed, windcauses the flower to move in the moth's visual field. The experimentsproposed are of two kinds: First, responses to a wide variety of visualstimuli will be recorded intracellularly as well as extracellularly fromlooming neurons in order to test if the trigger for the looming responsesare stimulus changes of luminance, changes of perimeter, or changes due tovisual flow fields. Second, computer models of these neuronal responseswill be constructed and tested with equivalent 'stimuli'. It is planned totest the models with real images by feeding into the models videos of e.g.foliage or flowers wiggling in the wind. One very practical future use ofsuch computer models may be in machine (robot) vision and in neuromorphicchips.