WEEK 3 Visual receiving area
- Occipital lobe
CHAPTER 4
The Visual Cortex and Beyond
Tatsuji Inouye
- Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905
- Treated soldiers who survived gunshot wounds to
head
- The area of the head that was injured was correlated
with the area of vision that was lost
- Ex. bullet on right side = visual impairments on left
side of visual field
From Retina to Visual Cortex
Pathway to the Brain
Optic chiasm
- Location where visual signals from both eyes meet
after leaving the back of the eye in the optic nerve
- X-shaped bundle of fibers on the underside of brain
- Where some fibers cross to the opposite side of the
brain they came from
o This crossing results to = all fibers
corresponding to the right visual field end up
on the left hemisphere and vice versa
Contralateral
- Opposite / pertaining to the other side
Both eyes can see both visual fields
Lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN)
- Where approximately 90% of signals from retina
proceed
- Neurons here have center-surround receptive fields
- Located in thalamus of each hemisphere
o Relay station where incoming sensory info
makes a stop before reaching cerebral
cortex
Superior colliculus
- Where other 10% of fibers travel to
- Structure involved in controlling eye movements
Characteristics of LGN:
1. The signal sent from the LGN to the cortex is smaller
than the input the LGN receives from retina; thus, it
regulates neural info as it flows from the retina to the
cortex
2. It receives more signals from the cortex than retina
Feedback
- “backward” flow of info that can be involved in
regulation of information
- Place where signals from the retina and LGN first
reach the cortex
- Also called striate cortex bc it has a striped
appearance when viewed in cross section, or area V1
to indicate that it is the first visual area in the cortex
Receptive Fields of Neurons in the Visual Cortex
David Hubel and Thorsten Wiesel
- Made substantial contributions to the study of
receptive fields
- Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1981
- Instead of shining light directly to animal’s eye, they
had animals look at SCREEN on which they projected
stimuli
o Advantage bc it is easier to control, sharper,
and easier to present complex stimuli (faces)
The receptive field is always on the receptor surface (no matter
where the neuron is) because that is where the stimuli are
received.
The cells in striate cortex with center-surround receptive fields
have excitatory and inhibitory areas.
Simple cortical cells
- Cells with side-by-side receptive fields
- Respond best to a vertical bar (firing increases when
bar illuminates the excitatory area, but decreases
when tilted to inhibitory)
- Many respond best to moving barlike stimuli with
specific orientations
Orientation tuning curve
- Relationship between orientation and firing
- Determined by measuring responses of a simple
cortical cell to bars with diff orientations
Complex cells
- Most respond only when a correctly oriented bar of
light moves across the entire receptive field
- (simple cells respond to small spots / stationary
stimuli)
- Their receptive fields are indicated by outlining the
area that, when stimulated, elicits a response in the
neuron (not + and -)
End-stopped cells
- Another type of cell in visual cortex
- Fires to moving lines of a specific length or to moving
corners or angles
- Responds best to a medium-sized corner that is
moving up
As we travel farther from the retina, neurons fire to more
complex stimuli.
Retinal ganglion cells
- Respond best to spots of light
Cortical end-stopped cells
- Respond best to bars of a certain length moving in a
particular direction

Feature detectors
- Simple, complex, and end-stopped cells
- Bc they fire in response to specific features of the
stimulus
The Role of Feature Detectors in Perception
Stimulus-physiology relationship
- Neurons responding to oriented lines
Physiology-behavior relationship
- Necessary to demonstrate a link between physiology
and perception
- Ex. selective adaptation
Selective Adaptation
Selective adaptation
- Firing causes neurons to eventually become fatigued,
or adapt
- 2 physiological effects
o The neuron’s firing rate decreases
o The neuron fires less when that stimulus is
immediately presented again
- Ex. presenting a vertical line causes neurons to
respond, but they eventually begin to fire less
- Adaptation is selective bc only the neurons that were
responding to verticals adapt, and neurons that were
not firing do not adapt
Contrast threshold
- Minimum intensity difference between 2 adjacent bars
that can just be detected
- Measured by changing the intensity difference
between the light & dark bars until they can barely be
seen
The selective adaptation experiment is measuring how a
physiological effect (adapting the feature detectors that
respond to a specific orientation) causes a perceptual result
(decrease in sensitivity to that orientation).
Selective Rearing
Selective rearing
- If an animal is reared in an environment that contains
only certain types of stimuli, the neurons that respond
best to these stimuli will become more prevalent
Neural plasticity or experience-dependent plasticity
- The response properties of neurons can be shaped by
perceptual experience
- Ex. rearing an animal in environment that contains
only vertical lines should result in them having simple
cells that respond predominantly to verticals
Adaptation is a short-term effect; selective rearing is a longer-
term effect.
Colin Blakemore and Grahame Cooper
- Placed kittens in striped tubes to expose them with
only 1 orientation for 5 hrs a day
- They sat in a Plexiglas platform, so the tube extended
above and below them
- They paid attention to either vertical/horizontal rod
Spatial Organization in the Visual Cortex
“neural maps”
- The organized form when objects are transformed into
electrical signals
- Thus objects near each other on the retina are
represented by neural signals near each other in the
cortex
The Neural Map in the Striate Cortex (V1)
Retinotopic map
- Electronic map of the retina on the cortex
- 2 points close on the object & on the retina will
activate neurons that are close in the brain
Cortical magnification
- Apportioning of a large area on the cortex to the small
fovea
- More space is devoted to areas of the retina near the
fovea
- (the electrical signals associated with the leaves are
allotted more space on the cortex than signals located
off to the side—in the periphery)
- Ex. distance between A & B

Cortical magnification factor
- Size of cortical magnification
- Fovea = 0.01% of retina’s area, but signals from fovea
= 8-10% of retinotopic map on cortex
Robert Dougherty & coworkers
- Participants in fMRI scanner looked at center of
screen
- Stimulus light was presented in 2 places: near the
center (red) which illuminated fovea; farther from
center (blue) which illuminated peripheral retina
- Stimulation of small area activated a greater area on
cortex (red) than stimulation of larger area in
periphery (blue)
Cortical magnification means when you
look at a scene, the info if where you are
looking at takes up a larger space on
your visual cortex than the are on the
side.
The Cortex Is Organized in Columns
Location and Orientation Columns
Location columns
- Striate cortex is organized into this
- Perpendicular to the surface of the cortex
- Perpendicular to the surface of the cortex, so all
neurons within a location column have their receptive
fields at the same loc on the retina
Not only neurons had receptive fields of the same location, but
they preferred stimuli with the same orientation.
Orientation columns
- Each column contains cells that respond best to a
particular orientation
One Location Column: Many Orientation Columns
1-mm dimension
- Size of 1 location column
- Means that 1 location column is large enough to
contian orientation columns that cover all possible
orientations
Hypercolumn
- Location column with all of its orientation columns
- Receives info about all possible orientations that fall
within a small area of retina; thus it is well suited for
processing info from a small area in the visual field
How V1 Neurons and Columns Underlie Perception of a
Scene
The cortical representation of a stimulus does not have to
resemble the stimulus; it just has to contain info that represents
the stimulus.
Tiling
- Effect where columns cover the entire visual field
Visual field
- Is served by adjacent (and often overlapping) location
columns
The idea that each part of a scene is represented by activity in
many location columns means that a scene containing many
objects is represented in the striate cortex by a complex
pattern of firing.
Beyond the Visual Cortex
After being processed in the striate cortex (V1), the visual
signal proceeds to other visual areas in the occpitial lobe.
Exastriate cortex
- Areas outside of the striate cortex
- V2, V3, V4, V5
Heirarchy of exastriate cortex areas
- Builds up as we move up, adding more aspects of the
visual scene such as corners, colors, motions, shape
Streams for Information About What and Where
Ungerleider and Mishkin
- Used a technique called ablation (lesioning) to better
understand the functional organization of the visual
system
- Presented monkeys with 2 tasks
o Object discrimintaion problem – shown 1
object (rectangle) and presented with 2-
choice task
o Landmark discrimination problem – remove
cover of food that was closest to the
“landmark” (tall cylnder)
Ablation
- Destruction or removal of tissue in the nervous
system
- Either by surjery or chemical that destroys tissue
What pathway
- Ventral pathway (lower part)
- Pathway from striate cortex to temporal lobe
- Responsible for determining the object’s identity
Where pathway
- Dorsal pathway (upper part)
- Pathway leading from striate cortex to parietal lobe
- Responsible for determining object’s location

Perception & action are served by diff mechanisms

Higher-Level Neurons
Responses of Neurons in Inferotemporal Cortex
Inferotemporal (IT) cortex
- Area in temporal lobe
- The incease in receptive field size (when moving to
higher levels) continues through the what stream so
that neurons in IT cortex have the largest receptive
fields
o large enough to encompass whole objects in
It is important to note that one’s visua fields
1. The pathways are NOT totally separated but have
connections between them
2. Signals flow not only “up” the pathway from the
occpitial to parietal & temporal but “BACK” as well

Streams for Information About What and How

Dorsal stream
- Provides information about how to direct action with
regard to a stimulus

Evidence that dorsal stream is involved in how to direct action:

1. The discovery of neurons in parietal cortex that
respond when a monkey looks at an object
2. “ when it reaches toward the object

The Behavior of Patient D.F.

DF
- A 34 year old woman who suffered damage to her
ventral pathway from carbon monoxide poisoning
caused by a gas leak
- Unable to match the orientation of a card to diff
orientations of a slot
- But when she was asked to “mail” the card through
the slot, she could
- Thus she performed poorly in static orientation-
matching task but did well as soon as action was
involved Charles Gross
- Discovery of IT neuron specificity—an idea later
supported by studies finding face-selective neurons
grouped together in IT cortex

How pathway or action pathway Hippocampus

- Dorsal pathway
- Bc it determines how a person carries out an action
The Behavior of People Without Brain Damage
Ganel & coworkers presented 2 tasks:
1. Length estimation task – indicate how they perceive
the lines’ length by spreading their thumb & index
finger
2. Grasping task – reach toward the lines & grasp each
line by its ends
- Area associated with forming & storing memories
Where Perception Meets Memory
Medial temporal lobe (MTL)
- Parahippocampal cortex, entorhinal cortex,
hippocampus
- Some signals leaving the IT cortex reach these
structures (which are important for memory)
 CHAPTER 5
Perceiving Objects and Scenes
Object recognition
- Process where the computer had to detect the objects
in the image and match those objects to existing
stored representations of what those objects are
- Ex. boy with toothbrush = boy with baseball bat

Why Is It So Difficult to Design a Perceiving Machine?

The Stimulus on the Receptors Is Ambiguous
Inverse projection problem
- Task of determining the object responsible for a
particular image on the retina
- Bc it involves starting with the retinal image and
extending rays out from the eye

But it is possible that the 2D image on the retina may NOT

accurately reflect what is “out there” in the environment.

Objects Can Be Hidden or Blurred

People easily understand that the part of an object that is
covered continues to exist, and they are able to use their
knowledge of the environment to determine what is likely to be
present.

People are able to recognize objects that are not in sharp

focus, like blurred faces, but computers perform poorly in this
task.

Objects Look Different From Different Viewpoints

Viewpoint invariance
- Ability to recognize an object seen from different
viewpoints
- This task is difficult for computers
- Ex. eraser in diff angles na example ni maam ana

Perceptual Organization
Perceptual organization
- Process where elements in a person’s visual field
become perceptually grouped and segregated to
create a perception
- Incoming stimulation is organized into coherent units
such as objects

2 components of perceptual organization process:

1. Grouping – process where elements in a visual scene
are “put together” into coherent units or objects
2. Segregation – process of separating 1 area or object
from another

The Gestalt Approach to Perceptual Grouping

Gestalt psychologists
- Gestalt means “configuration”; How are configurations
formed from smaller elements?
- Rejected the idea that perceptions were formed only
by “adding up” sensations

Structuralism
- Approach before Gestalt
- Wilhelm Wundt
- Distinguished between sensations (elementary
processes that occur in response to stimulation of the
senses) and perceptions (more complex conscious
experiences such as awareness of objects)
Max Wertheimer
- Provided an observation that led to rejection of idea
that perceptions were formed only by “adding up”
sensations; apparent movement
Apparent Movement
Stroboscope
- Mechanical device that creates illusion of movement
by rapidly alternating 2 slightly different pics
Apparent movement
- Although movement is perceived, nothing is actually
moving
Wertheimer’s 2 conclusions from apparent movement:
1. Apparent movement can’t be explained by sensations
alone, because there is nothing in the dark space
between flashing lights
2. The whole is different than the sum of its parts
(because the perceptual system creates the
perception of movement where there is actually none)
Illusory Contours
Illusory contours
- There are actually no physical edges present
- Sensations can’t explain illusory contours because
there are NO sensations along the contours
The idea that the whole is diff from the sum of its parts led
Gestalt psychologists to propose principles to explain the way
elements are grouped together.
Gestalt Principles of Perceptual Organization
Principles of perceptual organization
- Determine how elements in a scene become grouped
together
Good Continuation
Principle of good continuation
- “Points that, when connected, result in straight or
smoothly curving lines are seen as belonging
together, and the lines tend to be seen in such a way
as to follow the smoothest path.”
- Ex. the path from A does not go to C or D because
those paths would violate good continuation by
making sharp turns
- “Objects that are partially covered by other objects are
seen as continuing behind the covering object.”
Pragnanz
Pragnanz
- “good figure” in German
- Principle of good figure or principle of simplicity
- “Every stimulus pattern is seen in such a way that the
resulting structure is as simple as possible”
- Ex. we see the display as 5 circles, not as more
complicated shapes
Similarity
Principle of similarity
- “Similar things appear to be grouped together”
- Grouping can occur bc of similarity in color, shape,
size, or orientation
- Grouping can also occur for auditory stimuli
Proximity (Nearness)
Principle of proximity
- “Things that are near each other appear to be
grouped together”
- Ex. 3 separate groups of candles
Common Fate
Principle of common fate
- “Things that are moving in the same direction appear
to be grouped together”
- Ex. flock of birds
- Can work even if objects in a group are dissimilar
(basta na move ha same direction)
Additional principles proposed by modern perceptual
psychologists:
Common Region
Principle of common region
- “Elements that are within the same region of space
appear to be grouped together”
- Ex. (a) even though circles INSIDE the ovals are
farther apart than the circles next to each other, we
see the circles inside as belonging together
- This principle overpowers proximity (bc proximity
would predict that nearby circles will be perceived
together)
Uniform Connectedness
Principle of uniform connectedness
- “A connected region of the same visual properties,
such as lightness, color, texture, or motion, is
perceived as a single unit”
- Ex. (b) the connected circles are perceived as
grouped together
- Connectedness overpowers proximity
Perceptual Segregation
Figure-ground segregation
- One approach to studying perceptual segregation
- When we see a separate object, it is usually seen as
a figure that stands out from its background, which is
called the ground
- Ex. book/papers as figure, surface of desk as ground
Properties of Figure and Ground
Reversible figure-ground
- Edgar Rubin (1915)
- Ex. picture can be perceived alternately as either 2
dark blue faces in front of gray background or a gray
vase in front of dark blue background
Some properties of figure and ground:
1. The figure is more “thinglike” and more memorable
than ground (ex. seeing vase as an object will more
likely make u remember it)
2. The figure is seen as being in front of the ground
3. Near the borders it shares with the figure, the ground
is seen as an unformed material, without a specific
shape, and seems to extend behind the figure
4. The border separating the figure from the ground
appears to belong to the figure
Border ownership
- Property of border belonging to 1 area
Properties of the Image That Determine Which Area Is Figure
Figural cues
- Specified by Gestalt psychologists
- They specified a number of these within the image
that determine which areas are perceived as figure
While the principles of organizations determine how elements
of an image are grouped together, figural cues determine how
an image is segregated into figure and ground.
Shaun Vecera and coworkers (2002)
- Confirmed experimentally the idea that areas lower in
the field of view are more likely to be perceived as
figure
- Briefly flashed stimuli and determined which area was
seen as figure (red or green)
- They concluded that there is a preference for seeing
objects lower in the display as figure (bc it is typical of
scenes we perceive everyday)
Mary Peterson and Elizabeth Salvagio (2008)
- Demonstrated that figures are more likely to be
perceived on the convex side of borders (borders that
bulge outward)
- Segregation is determined not by just what is
happening at a single border, but by what is
happening in the wider scene
The Role of Perceptual Principles and Experience in
Determining Which Area Is Figure
Gestalt psychologists believed that although perception can be
affected by experience, built-in principles can override
experience.
The figure must stand out from the ground before it can be
recognized. Thus, the figure has to be separated from the
ground before we assign a meaning to the figure.
Recognition by Components
Recognition by components (RBC) theory
- Irving Biederman (1980s)
- This theory states that objects are comprised of
individual geometric components called geons, and
we recognize objects based on the arrangement of
these geons
o Building blocks of objects
o 3D shapes like pyramids, cubes, cylinders
- Biederman proposed that there are 36 geons
Important aspects of RBC theory:
1. It accounts for viewpoint invariance
2. It provides a simple & elegant way of approaching
object perception that included viewpoint invariance
3. But there are many aspects of object perception that
RBC theory can’t explain (ex. grouping, organization)
4. It does not allow for distinguishing between objects
within a given category (ex. 2 diff types of mugs with
same shape)
Perceiving Scenes and Objects in Scenes
Scene
- View of a real-world environment that contains
o Background elements
o Multiple objects that are organized in a
meaningful way relative to each other and
the background
Objects are acted upon, whereas scenes are extended in
space and are acted within. (ex. if we are walking and mailing a
letter, we are acting upon the mailbox and acting within the
street)
Perceiving the Gist of a Scene
Gist of a scene
- Despite the size and complexity, you can identify
important properties of most scenes after viewing
them for only a fraction of a second
- Ex. flipping TV channels
Mary Potter (1976)
- Her observers can view 16 rapidly presented pictures
accurately even when they were only flashed for only
250 ms = ¼ second)
- Ex. “girl clapping” description
Li Fei-Fei and coworkers (2007)
- Presented pics of scenes for exposures ranging from
27 ms – 500 ms and asked observers to write
description
- Used procedure called masking to be sure they saw
pictures for exactly the desired duration
We cannot present a stimulus visible for only 100 ms because
of persistence of vision—the perception of a visual stimulus
continues for about 250 ms (1/4 second) after the stimulus is Helmholtz’s Theory of Unconscious Inference
extinguished. But the persistence of vision can be eliminated Helmholtz
by presenting a visual masking stimulus—a random pattern - Contributed on perception by his realization that the
that covers the original stimulus. image on retina is ambiguous

Global image features

- Aude Oliva and Antonio Torralba
- Enables observers to perceive the gist of a scene so
rapidly
- Information that can be perceived rapidly & are
associated with specific types of scenes
- Holistic & rapidly perceived

Some of global image features:

1. Degree of naturalness (natural scenes = ocean,
His question was, “How does the perceptual system decide
forest, man-made scenes = streets)
that this pattern on the retina was created by overlapping
2. Degree of openness (ocean = visible horizon line & rectangles?”
only few objects)
3. Degree of roughness (smooth scenes = low
Likelihood principle
roughness like ocean, rough scenes = high roughness
- We perceive the object that is most likely to have
like forest with many elements) caused the pattern of stimuli we have received
4. Degree of expansion (the convergence of parallel
lines)
Unconscious inference
5. Color (ocean = blue, forest = green and brown)
- Our perceptions are the result of unconscious
assumptions, or inferences, that we make about the
Regularities in the environment
environment
- Characteristics of the environment that occur
frequently
Prediction
- Helmholtz’s theory has been reconceptualized to this
Regularities in the Environment: Information for
in modern research
Perceiving
- The idea that our past experiences help us make
Perception is influenced by 2 types of regularities:
informed guesses about what we will perceive
1. Physical regularities
2. Semantic regularities
Bayesian Inference
Thomas Bayes
Physical regularities
- 1763
Physical regularities - Proposed Bayesian inference
- Regularly occurring physical properties of the
- Our estimate of the probability of an outcome is
environment
determined by 2 factors
- Ex. vertical & horizontal orientations
o Prior probability – initial estimate of the
probability of an outcome
Light-from-above assumption
o Likelihood – extent to which the available
- We usually assume that light is coming from above,
evidence is consistent with the outcome
because light in the environment usually does
Bayesian inference restates Helmholtz’s idea that we perceive
Humans can perceive objects & scenes better than computers
what is most likely to have created the stimulation. It provides a
bc our perceptual system is adapted to respond to physical
specific procedure for determining what might be out there.
characteristics of our environment, such as the orientation of
objects & direction of light. How the Brain Implements Prediction
Predictive coding
Semantic Regularities
- Theory that describes how the brain uses our past
Semantics
experiences (or “priors”) to predict what we will
- Meaning of a scene / what happens in a scene perceive
- When new incoming visual input reaches the
Semantic regularities
receptors and sent upward in visual system, that
- Characteristics associated with activities that are
signal is compared to the predictions flowing
common in diff types of scenes
downward from higher levels
- Ex. office having desk, chair, computer
o In other words, the brain determines whether
what we’re seeing matches the higher-level
Scene schema
prediction
- Knowledge of what a given scene typically contains

“the multiple personalities of a blob”

- The blob is perceived as different objects depending
on its orientation and the context within which it is
seen

The Role of Inference in Perception - Ex. walking across campus and everything is
Hermann von Helmholtz expected bc of the same path, but suddenly a chicken
- Proposed the theory of unconscious inference jumps and runs across your path; thus an error signal
is generated and sent to higher levels of the visual
 system (so ur brain’s representation of the campus
has been updated)
Connecting Neural Activity and Object/Scene Perception
Brain Responses to Objects and Faces
Lateral occipital complex (LOC)
- Area that has been isolated in the ventral (“what”)
pathway
- Active when the person views any kind of object, but
not when they view a texture or an object with its parts
scrambled
- Activated by objectes regardless of size, orientation,
position, etc
- It builds upon the processing that took place in low-
visual regions like V1
- It does NOT differentiate between types of objects
(ex. face vs other objects)
The Neural Correlates of Face Perception
Fusiform face area (FFA)
- Located in fusiform gyrus on underside of brain,
directly below the IT cortex
- Damage to this area can cause prosopagnosia—
difficulty recognizing the faces of familiar people
But other research suggests that FFA is not the only area
involved in face perception.
Neural Representation of Other Categories of Objects
Extrastriate body area (EBA)
- Activated by pics of bodies and parts, but not by faces
or other objects
Brain Responses to Scenes
Parahippocampal place area (PPA)
- Region in temporal lobe that responds to places, but
not objects or faces
- Indoor and outdoor scenes
- What is important here is information about spatial
layout
- Some prefer parahippocampal cortex (PHC)
Spatial layout hypothesis
- Russell Epstein
- Proposes that PPA/PHC responds to the surface
geometry or geometric layout of a scene
- Bc scenes cause larger responses than buildings
(only “partial scenes”
The Relationship Between Perception and Brain Activity
Binocular rivalry
- Observer perceives either the left-eye image or right-
eye image, but NOT BOTH at the same time
- Activity in brain changes depending on what the
person experiences
Neural Mind Reading
Neural mind reading
- Reverse process: measuring brain response and
determining the stimuli that generated the response
- Refers to using a neural response to determine what
a person is perceiving or thinking
Multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA)
- Technique that measures the pattern of activation
across multiple voxels
- Decoder predicts the most likely stimulus based on
the voxel activation patterns
Expertise hypothesis
- Idea that our proficiency in perceiving faces can be
explained by the fact that we have become “experts”
bc we have been exposed to them our entire lives