Development of visual object recognition

项目摘要 视觉神经科学的一个中心目标是了解大脑如何支持感知。一种强大的方法 研究大脑功能和感知之间的关系， 发展视点不变的视觉目标识别是一个计算困难但高度生态化的问题。 相关任务。婴儿的视觉功能很差，并且在不同的发育轨迹中出现 这取决于视觉功能的类型。理解视觉对象的发展轨迹 识别行为和神经生理学将有助于限制计算模型， 将神经元反应与行为联系起来 神经生理学测量技术的最新进展已经令人信服地证明， 腹侧视觉流，特别是IT皮层，包含了一个强大的代表性的对象。实验我们 在这项拨款申请中提出的目的是探索不变量的行为发展之间的联系 目标识别和视觉区IT的功能发展。 首先，我们将使用心理物理学技术来纵向跟踪物体识别的发展， 并且易于训练物体-奇异任务。我们将探索形状相似性和保持身份的图像变化， 大脑必须克服两个计算挑战来支持不变对象识别。我们还将 在开发过程中描述对象识别对空间杂波的鲁棒性。我们将使用的图像 放置在自然背景上的三维物体，位置、姿态和大小各不相同。 其次，我们将直接从神经生理学角度评估神经反应特性的发展， 感受野组织的区域IT相同的图像的对象。清醒时的记录会被交错 在同一个体中进行行为测定，以直接关联行为和神经发育。 这些实验将促进我们对信息技术在支持1）物体识别方面的作用的理解 对身份保持图像变化具有鲁棒性的性能，以及2）神经发育的局限性 对知觉和认知发展的影响。我们更大的目标是阐明机制， 其由腹侧流处理形成以支持不变对象识别。

Project Summary A central goal of visual neuroscience is to understand how the brain supports perception. A powerful approach to studying the relationship between brain function and perception is to study the processes in parallel during development. View-invariant visual object recognition is a computationally difficult but highly ecologically relevant task. Visual function is poor in infants and emerges over different developmental trajectories depending on the type of visual function. Understanding the developmental trajectory of visual object recognition behaviorally and neurophysiologically will help constrain computational models that quantitatively link neuronal responses to behavior. Recent progress in neurophysiological measurement techniques have demonstrated convincingly that the ventral visual stream, IT cortex in particular, contains a robust representation of objects. The experiments we propose in this grant application aim to explore the links between the behavioral development of invariant object recognition and the functional development of visual area IT. First, we will use psychophysical techniques to longitudinally track the development of object recognition using and easy to train object-oddity task. We will explore shape similarity and identity-preserving image variation, two computational challenges the brain has to overcome to support invariant object recognition. We will also characterize the robustness of object recognition to spatial clutter during development. We will use images of three-dimensional objects placed on natural backgrounds and vary position, pose, and size. Second, we will directly assess neurophysiologically the development of neural response properties and receptive field organization of area IT to the same images of objects. The awake recordings will be interleaved with behavioral assays in the same individuals to directly correlate behavioral and neural development. These experiments will advance our understanding of the role of IT in support of 1) object recognition performance that is robust to identity preserving image variation, and 2) the limitations that neural development pose on the development of perception and cognition. Our greater goal is to elucidate the mechanisms by which the ventral stream processes form to support invariant object recognition.