Attention and the Perception of Surfaces

描述（由申请人提供）：要在充满物体的环境中识别物体并与之交互，必须对定义物体的表面进行准确的感知表示。表面表征过程整合了早期皮层过程的局部特征信息来形成表面。然而，使表征表面的过程变得复杂的是，大多数物体彼此重叠，导致物体表面被遮挡的部分没有被早期皮质过程编码。因此，为了准确地表示表面，表面表示过程使用了一系列来自环境常数的感知规则，即使它依赖于未遮挡部分的早期特征。但是这些感知规则是如何实现的，在表面表征过程的哪个阶段，以及自上而下的注意力如何调节遮挡和被遮挡表面的表征，这些都没有得到很好的理解。鉴于此，我们的方案在表示表面时解决了三个基本问题。这些问题包括：A.模态曲面插值中的边界轮廓和曲面性质信息B.双眼观察过程中曲面形成的操作约束C.双眼表面感知的抑制机制和可塑性。这些问题将采用心理物理学的方法在正常视力和具有明显感觉眼优势的人类观察者身上进行研究。后一组观察者在双眼看到不同的图像时，倾向于抑制非主视眼所看到的图像；这种情况几乎类似于斜视弱视患者的极端状况。在本提案中，我们将测试和评估一种新的感知学习范式，旨在减少感官眼优势和提高感知。因此，我们的研究结果不仅将进一步了解感知表面的感知和注意机制，而且具有临床意义。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): To recognize and interact with objects in an object-filled environment, an accurate perceptual representation of the surfaces that define the objects is essential. The surface representation process integrates local feature information from the early cortical processes to form surfaces. Complicating the process of representing surfaces, however, is the fact that most objects overlap one another, resulting in the occluded parts of the objects' surfaces not being encoded by the early cortical processes. Thus, to accurately represent surfaces, the surface representation process uses an arsenal of perceptual rules derived from environmental constants even as it relies on the early features of the non-occluded parts. But how these perceptual rules are implemented, at which stage of the surface representation process, and how top-down attention modulates the representation of both the occluding and occluded surfaces are not well understood. In light of these, our proposal addresses three fundamental issues in representing surfaces. The issues are: A. The boundary contour and surface property information in amodal surface interpolation B. The operational constraints in surface formation during binocular viewing C. Inhibitory mechanism and plasticity in binocular surface perception These issues will be investigated using psychophysical methods on human observers with normal vision, and those with significant sensory eye dominance. Observers in the latter group tend to suppress the image viewed by the non-dominant eye when the two eyes see different images; a situation almost resembling the extreme condition afflicting strabismic amblyopia patients. In this proposal, we will test and evaluate a new perceptual learning paradigm aimed at reducing sensory eye dominance and improving perception. Therefore, the outcomes of our investigations will not only further the knowledge of perceptual and attention mechanisms in perceiving surfaces, but also has a clinical significance.