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Feature detectors
Neurons that fire to specific features of a stimulus Pathway away from retina shows neurons that fire to more complex stimuli Cells that are feature detectors: Simple cortical cell Complex cortical cell End-stopped cortical cell
Neurons in this area respond to complex stimuli like those shown on the left.
Selective adaptation
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Figure 3.30 How neurons that respond best to narrow (N), medium (M), and wide (W) bars respond to the medium-bar grating on the right of Figure 3.28. (a-b): Response before adaptation. (c) Response after adaptation to the wide-bar grating at the top left. (d) Response after adaptation to the narrow-bar grating on the bottom left.
After Image
After images: Red Green Green Red Blue Yellow Yellow Blue
Color perception
R adaptation
adaptation
After image
After image
Binding problem
Columnar organization
Neurons that respond to the same orientation are packed in the same column
Image courtesy of Dr. Paul Wellman and Neuroscience, 2nd Ed. (2000).
Depending on where you look at, the figure and the ground switch rapidly. Attention plays some role in determining the figure and the ground.
Copies of the black (A) and the white (B) vertical contour.
Attention is the glue that combines the information from the what and where systems.
Demonstration
I will show you a scene quickly. Report first the black numbers. Report what you see at each of the 4 locations.
Mask
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Report first the black numbers. Report what you saw at each of the 4 locations.
Illusionary conjunctions
We tend to put different features from different objects together. Some brain damaged patients (parietal lobe) show illusionary conjunctions even when the patients were allowed to view the stimuli for 10 seconds.
Conjunction search For this you need to combine two or more features (color and orientation) you need attention
Conjunction search For this you need to combine two or more features (color and orientation) you need attention
Because you can attend an item one at a time, the difficulty in the conjunction search increases proportional to the number of items in the stimulus frame. This is not the case in the feature search.
Find
Find
Target:
Target:
Target:
Target:
Conjunction search
You need to combine features to find the target. You need attention. Because you can attend only one item at a time, the conjunction search becomes more difficult when more items are in the stimulus frame.
Feature search
Conjunction search
Experiments:
Measure accuracy and response times (conjunction cases vs. non-conjunction cases)
Response time
1000 ms
500ms
# of distractors
Response time
1000 ms
500ms
# of distractors
Separate neurons respond to color (green, blue, white), contours (orientations), textures, so on. Synchrony hypothesis:
When the features come from the same object (i.e., the woman), these neurons fire at the same time in the same manner. When the neurons fire at the same time and in the same manner, we perceive binding of features.
Attention
Selecting information Enhancing information Combining information