Work

Figure-Ground Organization in Visual Cortex for Natural Scenes

Year: 2016

Type: article

Abstract: Figure-ground organization and border-ownership assignment are essential for understanding natural scenes. It has been shown that many neurons in the macaque visual cortex signal border-ownership in displays of simple geometric shapes such as squares, but how well these neurons resolve border-ownership in natural scenes is not known. We studied area V2 neurons in behaving macaques with static images of complex natural scenes. We found that about half of the neurons were border-ownership selective for contours in natural scenes, and this selectivity originated from the image context. The border-ownership signals emerged within 70 ms after stimulus onset, only ∼30 ms after response onset. A substantial fraction of neurons were highly consistent across scenes. Thus, the cortical mechanisms of figure-ground organization are fast and efficient even in images of complex natural scenes. Understanding how the brain performs this task so fast remains a challenge.

Source: eNeuro

DOI: 10.1523/eneuro.0127-16.2016

Authors: Jonathan R. Williford, Rüdiger von der Heydt

Institutions: Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University

Language: English

Topic: Visual perception and processing mechanisms

Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience

Field: Neuroscience

Domain: Life Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $2,925

Funders: National Institutes of Health, Office of Naval Research, National Eye Institute