Boundary Contour System

The Boundary Contour System is a dynamic neural network model composed of shunting neurons designed to replicate the properites of illusory contour formation as observed in psychophysical studies.


Articles & Tech Transfers


Neural dynamics of 1-D and 2-D brightness perception: A unified model of classical and recent phenomena
Abstract Computer simulations of a neural network model of I-D and 2-D brightness phenomena are presented. The simulations indicate how configural image properties trigger interactions among spatially organized contrastive, boundary ...

Neural dynamics of surface perception: Boundary webs, illuminants, and shape-from-shading
Abstract A real-time visual processing theory is used to provide a new approach to the analysis of surface perception, notably shape-from-shading. The theory elsewhere has been used to explain data about boundary detection and ...

Neural dynamics of perceptual grouping: Textures, boundaries, and emergent segmentations
Abstract A real-time visual processing theory is used to analyze and explain a wide variety of perceptual grouping and segmentation phenomena, including the grouping of textured images, randomly defined images, and images built up ...

Neural dynamics of form perception: Boundary completion, illusory figures, and neon color spreading
Abstract A real-time visual processing theory is used to analyze real and illusory contour formation, contour and brightness interactions, neon color spreading, complementary color induction, and filling-in of discounted illuminants ...

Cortical dynamics of three-dimensional form, color, and brightness perception, II: Binocular theory
Abstract A real-time visual processing theory is developed to explain how three-dimensional form, color, and brightness perceptsa re coherently synthesized. The theory describeEhJo w several undamental uncertainty principles which ...

Cortical dynamics of three-dimensional form, color, and brightness perception, I: Monocular theory
Abstract A real-time visual processing theory is developed to explain how three-dimensional form, color, and brightness percept. aJ re coherently synthesized. The theory describesh ow several fundamental uncertainty principles which ...

Computer simulation of neural networks for perceptual psychology
Abstract Computer simulations of neural network processes fill an important methodological niche, permitting the investigation of questions not resolvable by physiological, behavioral, or formal approaches alone. Two types of network ...

Stereo boundary fusion by cortical complex cells: A system of maps, filters, and feedback networks
Abstract A neural network model of multiple-scale binocular fusion and rivalry in visual cortex is described and simulated on the computer. The model consists of three parts: a distributed spatial representation of binocular input ...

A neural network architecture for preattentive vision
Abstract Recent results towards development of a neural network architecture for general-purpose preattentive vision are summarized. The architecture contains two parallel subsystems, the boundary contour system (BCS) and the feature ...

Invariant recognition of cluttered scenes by a self-organizing ART architecture: Figure-ground separation
Abstract A neural network model, called an FBF network, is proposed for automatic parallel separation of multiple image figures from each other and their backgrounds in noisy gray-scale or multi-colored images. The figures can then ...

Cortical dynamics of visual motion perception: Short-range and long-range apparent motion
Abstract A large body of data is reviewed to support a new theory of motion perception described by S. Grossberg and M. E. Rudd (1989). The Motion Boundary Contour System is used to explain classical and recent data about motion ...

A solution of the figure-ground problem for biological vision
Abstract A neural network model of 3-D visual perception and figure-ground separation by visual cortex is intro¬duced. The theory provides a unified explanation of how a 2-D image may generate a 3-D percept; how figures pop-out from ...

Texture segregation, surface representation, and figure-ground separation
Abstract A widespread view is that most texture segregation can be accounted for by differences in the spatial frequency content of texture regions. Evidence from both psychophysical and physiological studies indicate, however, that ...

A neural theory of attentive visual search: Interactions of boundary, surface, spatial, and object representations
Abstract Visual search data are given a unified quantitative explanation by a model of how spatial maps in the parietal cortex and object recognition categories in the inferotemporal cortex deploy attentional resources as they ...

Visual brain and visual perception: How does the cortex do perceptual grouping?
Abstract How the brain generates visual percepts is a central problem in neuroscience. We propose a detailed neural model of how lateral geniculate nuclei and the interblob cortical stream through V1 and V2 generate context-sensitive ...

Cortical dynamics of form and motion integration: Persistence, apparent motion, and illusory contours
Abstract How does the visual system generate percepts of moving forms ? How does this happen when the forms are emergent percepts, such as illusory contours or segregated textures, and the motion percept is apparent motion between ...

Cortical dynamics of three-dimensional figure-ground perception of two-dimensional figures
Abstract This article develops the FACADE theory of 3-dimensional (3-D) vision and figure-ground separation to explain data concerning how 2-dimensional pictures give rise to 3-D percepts of occluding and occluded objects. The model ...

Cortical dynamics of boundary segmentation and reset: Persistence, afterimages, and residual traces
Abstract In previous work with a neural-network model of boundary segmentation and reset, the percept of persistence was linked to the duration of a boundary segmentation after stimulus offset. In particular, the model simulated the ...

Contour integration across polarities and spatial gaps: From local contrast filtering to global grouping
Abstract This article introduces an experimental paradigm to selectively probe the multiple levels of visual processing that influence the formation of object contours, perceptual boundaries, and illusory contours. The experiments ...

3-D vision and figure-ground separation by visual cortex
Abstract A neural network theory of three-dimensional (3-D) vision, called FACADE theory, is described. The theory proposes a solution of the classical figure-ground problem for biological vision. It does so by suggesting how ...

Fast synchronization of perceptual grouping in laminar visual cortical circuits
Abstract Perceptual grouping is well known to be a fundamental process during visual perception, notably grouping across scenic regions that do not receive contrastive visual inputs. Illusory contours are a classical example of such ...

A self-organizing neural system for learning to recognize textured scenes
Abstract A self-organizing ARTEX model is developed to categorize and classify textured image regions. ARTEX specializes the FACADE model of how the visual cortex sees, and the ART model of how temporal and prefrontal cortices ...

Spatial facilitation by color and luminance edges: Boundary, surface, and attentional factors
Abstract The thresholds of human observers detecting line targets improve significantly when the targets are presented in a spatial context of collinear inducing stimuli. This phenomenon is referred to as spatial facilitation, and ...

Context-sensitive bindings by the laminar circuits of V1 and V2: A unified model of perceptual grouping, attention, and orientation contrast
Abstract A detailed neural model is presented of how the laminar circuits of visual cortical areas V1 and V2 implement context-sensitive binding processes such as perceptual grouping and attention. The model proposes how specific ...

Thalamocortical dynamics of the McCollough effect: Boundary-surface alignment through perceptual learning
Abstract This article further develops the FACADE neural model of 3-D vision and figure-ground perception to quantitatively explain properties of the McCollough effect (ME). The model proposes that many ME data result from visual ...

Depth perception from pairs of overlapping cues in pictorial displays
Abstract The experiments reported herein probe the visual cortical mechanisms that control near-far percepts in response to two-dimensional stimuli. Figural contrast is found to be a principal factor for the emergence of percepts of ...

The watercolor illusion and neon color spreading: A unified analysis of new cases and neural mechanisms
Abstract Coloration and figural properties of neon color spreading and the watercolor illusion are studied using phenomenal and psychophysical observations. Coloration properties of both effects can be reduced to a common limiting ...

A neural model of 3D shape-from-texture: Multiple-scale filtering, boundary grouping, and surface filling-in
Abstract A neural model is presented of how cortical areas V1, V2, and V4 interact to convert a textured 2D image into a representation of curved 3D shape. Two basic problems are solved to achieve this: (1) Patterns of spatially ...

Synthetic aperture radar processing by a multiple scale neural system for boundary and surface representation
Abstract A neural network model of boundary segmentation and surface representation is developed to process images containing range data gathered by a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensor. The boundary and surface processing are ...

Invariant pattern recognition and recall by an attentive ART architecture in a nonstationary world
Abstract A neural network is described which can stably self-organize an invariant pattern recognition code in response to a sequence of analog or digital input patterns; be attentionally p[rimed to ignore all but a designated ...

Temporal dynamics of decision-making during motion perception in the visual cortex
Abstract How does the brain make decisions? Speed and accuracy of perceptual decisions covary with certainty in the input, and correlate with the rate of evidence accumulation in parietal and frontal cortical ?decision neurons.? A ...

A neural network for enhancing boundaries and surfaces in synthetic aperture radar images
Abstract A neural network system for boundary segmentation and surface representation, inspired by a new local-circuit model of visual processing in the cerebral cortex, is used to enhance images of range data gathered by a synthetic ...

Invariant recognition of cluttered scenes by a self-organizing ART architecture: CORT-X boundary segmentation
Abstract A neural network architecture is outlined that self-organizes invariant pattern recognition codes of noisy images. The processing stages are figure-ground separation, boundary segmentation, invariant filtering, and ...

Texture segregation by visual cortex: Perceptual grouping, attention, and learning
Abstract A neural model called dARTEX is proposed of how laminar interactions in the visual cortex may learn and recognize object texture and form boundaries. The model unifies five interacting processes: region-based texture ...

CONFIGR: A vision-based model for long-range figure completion
Abstract CONFIGR (CONtour FIgure GRound) is a computational model based on principles of biological vision that completes sparse and noisy image figures. Within an integrated vision/recognition system, CONFIGR posits an initial ...

Visual cortical mechanisms of perceptual grouping: Interacting layers, networks, columns, and maps
Abstract The visual cortex has a laminar organization whose circuits form functional columns in cortical maps. How this laminar architecture supports visual percepts is not well understood. A neural model proposes how the laminar ...

How the Brain Sees:  Fundamentals and Recent Progress in Modeling Vision
Abstract This is a review of neural network based vision modeling techniques. The models discussed are: shunting and distance-dependent networks, boundary grouping and completion models, neon color spreading models, etc. ...

How does the cerebral cortex work? Learning, attention and grouping by the laminar circuits of visual cortex
Abstract The organization of neocortex into layers is one of its most salient anatomical features. These layers include circuits that form functional columns in cortical maps. A major unsolved problem concerns how bottom-up, ...

Contrast-sensitive perceptual grouping and object-based attention in the laminar circuits of primary
Abstract Recent neurophysiological studies have shown that primary visual cortex, or V1, does more than passively process image features using the feedforward filters suggested by Hubel and Wiesel. It also uses horizontal ...

Neural dynamics of 3-D surface perception: Figure-ground separation and lightness perception
Abstract This article develops the FACADE theory of three-dimensional (3-D) vision to simulate data concerning how two-dimensional (2-D) pictures give rise to 3-D percepts of occluded and occluding surfaces. The theory suggests how ...


Software


CONFIGR: CONtour FIgure GRound
Description CONFIGR (CONtour FIgure and GRound) is a model that performs long-range contour completion on large-scale images. CONFIGR accomplishes this through a mechanism that fills-in both figure and ground via complementary process. ...

MOtion DEcision (MODE) model
Description MOtion DEcision (MODE) model is a neural model of perceptual decision-making that discriminates the direction of an ambiguous motion stimulus and simulates behavioral and physiological data obtained from macaques performing ...