How Shape Perception Works, in Two Dimensions and Three Dimensions
Year: 2024
Type: review
Abstract: The ventral visual pathway transforms retinal images into neural representations that support object understanding, including exquisite appreciation of precise 2D pattern shape and 3D volumetric shape. We articulate a framework for understanding the goals of this transformation and how they are achieved by neural coding at successive ventral pathway stages. The critical goals are ( a ) radical compression to make shape information communicable across axonal bundles and storable in memory, ( b ) explicit coding to make shape information easily readable by the rest of the brain and thus accessible for cognition and behavioral control, and ( c ) representational stability to maintain consistent perception across highly variable viewing conditions. We describe how each transformational step in ventral pathway vision serves one or more of these goals. This three-goal framework unifies discoveries about ventral shape processing into a neural explanation for our remarkable experience of shape as a vivid, richly detailed aspect of the natural world.
Source: Annual Review of Vision Science
Authors: Kristina J. Nielsen, Charles E. Connor
Institution: Johns Hopkins University
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4399419508