Biological Vision

Papers focusing on how biological systems visually perceive their surroundings. Topics include: brightness perception, motion perception, depth perception, surface perception.


Articles & Tech Transfers


Critical Motion Detection of Nearby Moving Vehicles in a Vision-Based Driver-Assistance System
Abstract Driving always involves risk. Various means have been proposed to reduce the risk. Critical motion detection of nearby moving vehicles is one of the important means of preventing accidents. In this paper, a computational ...

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 brightness perception: Features, boundaries, diffusion, and resonance
Abstract A real-time visual processing theory is used to unify the explanation of monocular and binocular brightness data. This theory describes adaptive processes which overcome limitations of the visual uptake process to synthesize ...

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 ...

Outline of a theory of brightness, color, and form perception
Abstract This paper describes new concepts and mechanisms from a real-time visual processing theory that has been used to explain paradoxical data about brightness and form perception. These data include the Craik-O'Brien effect, the ...

On visual illusions in neural networks: Line neutralization, tilt aftereffect, and angle expansion
Abstract Certain visual illusion occur in neural networks that are capable of storing partially contrasted enhanced spatial patterns in short term memory (STM), and whose feature detectors are interconnected by nontrivial ...

On the development of feature detectors in the visual cortex with applications to learning and reaction-diffusion systems
Abstract Developmental mechanisms for tuning of visual cortex are derived from adult learning mechanisms: an adaptational property of shunting on-center off-surround networks that prevents saturation of parallel processed patterns at ...

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 ...

A neural architecture for visual motion perception: Group and element apparent motion
Abstract neural network model ormotion segmentation by visual cortex is described. The model s properties are illustrated by simulating on the computer data concerning group and element apparent motion, including the tendency for ...

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 ...

Neural FACADES: Visual representations of static and moving form-and-color-and-depth
Abstract 1. Introduction: The Inadequacy of Visual Modules
This article discusses some implications for understanding vision of recent theoretical results concerning the neural architectures that subserve visual perception in humans ...

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 ...

Adaptive vector integration to endpoint: Self-organizing neural circuits for control of planned movement trajectories
Abstract A neural network model is described for adaptive control of arm movement trajectories during visually guided reaching. The model clarifies how a child, or infant robot, can learn to reach for objects that it sees. Piaget has ...

Working memory networks for learning temporal order with application to 3-D visual object recognition
Abstract Working memory neural networks, called Sustained Temporal Order REcurrent (STORE) models, encode the invariant temporal order of sequential events in short-term memory (STM). Inputs to the networks may be presented with ...

Neural representations for sensory-motor control, I: Head-centered 3-D target positions from opponent eye commands
Abstract This article describes how corollary discharges from outflow eye movement commands can be transformed by two stages of opponent neural processing into a head-centered representation of 3-D target position. This ...

Neural representations for sensory-motor control, II: Learning a head-centered visuomotor representation of 3-D target position
Abstract A neural network model is described for how an invariant head-centered representation of 3-D target position can be autonomously learned by the brain in real time. Once learned, such a target representation may be used to ...

Vector associative maps: Unsupervised real-time error-based learning and control of movement trajectories
Abstract This article describes neural network models for adaptive control of arm movement trajectories during visually guided reaching and, more generally, a framework for unsupervised real-time error-based learning. The models ...

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 ...

A self-organizing neural model of motor equivalent reaching and tool use by a multijoint arm
Abstract This paper describes a self-organizing neural model for eye-hand coordination. Called the DIRECT model, it embodies a solution of the classical motor equivalence problem. Motor equivalence computations allow humans and other ...

Synchronized oscillations during cooperative feature linking in a cortical model of visual perception
Abstract A neural network model of synchronized oscillations in visual cortex is presented to account for recent neurophysiological findings that such synchronization may reflect global properties of the stimulus. In these ...

A neural model of multimodal adaptive saccadic eye movement control by superior colliculus
Abstract How does the saccadic movement system select a target when visual, auditory, and planned movement commands differ? How do retinal, head-centered, and motor error coordinates interact during the selection process? Recent data ...

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 ...

Rules for the cortical map of ocular dominance and orientation columns
Abstract Three computational rules are sufficient to generate model cortical maps that simulate the interrelated structure of cortical ocular dominance and orientation columns: a noise input. a spatial band passfilter. and ...

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 ...

A neural model of the saccade generator in the reticular formation
Abstract A neural model is developed of the neural circuitry in the reticular formation that is used to generate saccadic eye movements. The model simulates the behavior of identified cell types - such as long-lead burst neurons, ...

Neural representations for sensory-motor control, III: Learning a body-centered representation of 3-D target position
Abstract This article describes how corollary discharges from outflow eye movement commands can be transformed by two stages of opponent neural processing into a head-centered representation of 3-D target position. This ...

Self-organization of binocular disparity tuning by reciprocal corticogeniculate interactions
Abstract This article develops a neural model of how sharp disparity tuning can arise through experience-dependent development of cortical complex cells. This learning process clarifies how complex cells can binocularly match left ...

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 computation of stereo disparity
Abstract Our ability to see the world in depth is a major accomplishment of the brain. Previous models of how positionally disparate cues to the two eyes are binocularly matched limit possible matches by invoking uniqueness and ...

Cortical dynamics of 3-D surface perception: Binocular and half-occluded scenic images
Abstract Previous models of stereopsis have concentrated on the task of binocularly matching left and right eye primitives uniquely. A disparity smoothness constraint is often invoked to limit the number of possible matches. These ...

Cortical dynamics of feature binding and reset: Control of visual persistence
Abstract An analysis of the reset of visual cortical circuits responsible for the binding or segmentation of visual features into coherent visual forms yields a model that explains properties of visual persistence. The reset ...

Cortical synchronization and perceptual framing
Abstract How does the brain group together different parts of an object into a coherent visual object representation? Different parts of an object may be processed by the brain at different rates and may thus become desynchronized. ...

Fast learning VIEWNET architectures for recognizing 3-D objects from multiple 2-D views
Abstract The recognition of three-dimensional (3-D) objects from sequences of their two-dimensional (2-D) views is modeled by a family of self-organizing neural architectures, called VIEWNET, that use View Information Encoded With ...

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 ...

A neural network model for the development of simple and complex cell receptive fields within cortical maps of orientation and ocular dominance
Abstract Prenatal development of the primary visual cortex leads to simple cells with spatially distinct and oriented ON and OFF subregions. These simple cells are organized into spatial maps of orientation and ocular dominance that ...

A neural model of high-level motion processing: Line motion and formotion dynamics
Abstract The percepts known variously as the line motion illusion, motion induction, and transformational apparent motion have attracted a great deal of experimental interest, since they sensitively probe interactions between ...

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 ...

Biologically Inspired Approaches to Automated Feature Extraction and Target Recognition
Abstract Ongoing research at Boston University has produced computational models of biological vision and learning that embody a growing corpus of scientific data and predictions. Vision models perform long-range grouping and ...

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 ...

Neural dynamics of motion processing and speed discrimination
Abstract A neural network model of visual motion perception and speed discrimination is presented. The model shows how a distributed population code of speed tuning, that realizes a size-speed correlation, can be derived from the ...

A self-organizing neural network architecture for navigation using optic flow
Abstract This article describes a self-organizing neural network architecture that transforms optic flow and eye position information into representations of heading, scene depth, and moving object locations. These representations ...

A neural model of motion processing and visual navigation by cortical area MST
Abstract Cells in the dorsal medial superior temporal cortex (MSTd) process optic flow generated by self-motion during visually guided navigation. A neural model shows how interactions between well-known neural mechanisms (log polar ...

Figure-ground separation by visual cortex
Abstract Figure-ground perception enables us to perceive objects that are distinct from one another and from their scenic background. The remarkable nature of figure-ground perception may be better appreciated when we reflect that ...

A neural model of the saccadic eye movement control explains task-specific adaptation
Abstract Multiple brain learning sites are needed to calibrate the accuracy of saccadic eye movements. This is true because saccades can be made reactively to visual cues, attentively to visual or auditory cues, or planned in ...

Neural dynamics of binocular brightness perception
Abstract How does the visual cortex combine information from both eyes to generate perceptual representations of object surfaces? Important clues about this process may be derived from data about the perceived brightness of surface ...

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 ...

A neural model of first-order and second-order motion perception and magnocellular dynamics
Abstract A neural model of motion perception simulates psychophysical data concerning first-order and second-order motion stimuli, including the reversal of perceived motion direction with distance from the stimulus (Γ display), and ...

A neural model of smooth pursuit control and motion perception by cortical area MST
Abstract Smooth pursuit eye movements (SPEMs) are eye rotations that are used to maintain fixation on a moving target. Such rotations complicate the interpretation of the retinal image, because they nullify the retinal motion of the ...

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 ...

Neural dynamics of motion integration and segmentation within and across apertures
Abstract A neural model is developed of how motion integration and segmentation processes, both within and across apertures, compute global motion percepts. Figure-ground properties, such as occlusion, influence which motion signals ...

Linking the laminar circuits of visual cortex to visual perception: Development, grouping, and attention
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, ...

Temporal dynamics of binocular disparity processing with corticogeniculate interactions
Abstract A neural model is developed to probe how corticogeniculate feedback may contribute to the dynamics of binocular vision. Feedforward and feedback interactions among retinal, lateral geniculate, and cortical simple and complex ...

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 ...

A neuromorphic model for achromatic and chromatic surface representation of natural images
Abstract This study develops a neuromorphic model of human lightness perception that is inspired by how the mammalian visual system is designed for this function. It is known that biological visual representations can adapt to a ...

Laminar development of receptive fields, maps, and columns in visual cortex: The coordinating role of the subplate
Abstract How is development of cortical maps in V1 coordinated across cortical layers to form cortical columns? Previous neural models propose how maps of orientation (OR), ocular dominance (OD), and related properties develop in V1. ...

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 ...

Towards a unified theory of neocortex: Laminar cortical circuits for vision and cognition
Abstract A key goal of computational neuroscience is to link brain mechanisms to behavioral functions. The present article describes recent progress towards explaining how laminar neocortical circuits give rise to biological ...

A laminar cortical model of stereopsis and 3D surface perception: Closure and da Vinci stereopsis
Abstract A laminar cortical model of stereopsis and 3D surface perception is developed and simulated. The model describes how monocular and binocular oriented filtering interact with later stages of 3D boundary formation and surface ...

A neural model of surface perception: Lightness, anchoring, and filling-in
Abstract A neural model is proposed of how the visual system processes natural images under variable illumination conditions to generate surface lightness percepts. Previous models clarify how the brain can compute relative contrast. ...

Laminar cortical dynamics of visual form and motion interactions during coherent object motion perception
Abstract How do visual form and motion processes cooperate to compute object motion when each process separately is insufficient? Consider, for example, a deer moving behind a bush. Here the partially occluded fragments of motion ...

Adaptive pattern classification and universal recoding: I Parallel development and coding of neural feature detectors
Abstract This paper analyses a model for the parallel development and adult coding of neural feature detectors. The model was introduced in Grossberg (1976). We show how experience can retune feature detectors to respond to a ...

Adaptive pattern classification and universal recoding: II Feedback, expectation, olfaction, illusions
Abstract Part I of this paper describes a model for the parallel development and adult coding of neural feature detectors. It shows how any set of arbitrary spatial patterns can be recoded, or transformed, into any other spatial ...

Working memories for storage and recall of arbitrary temporal sequences
Abstract Working memory neural networks, called Sustained Temporal Order REcurrent (STORE) models, encode the invariant temporal order of sequential events in short term memory (STM). Inputs to the networks may be presented with ...

Self organizing neural network architectures for adaptive pattern recognition and robotics
Abstract In this chapter, we discuss some recent results in neural networks relevant to adaptive pattern recognition and sensory-motor control problems. IN biologically-oriented neural networks, whose fast dynamics are governed by ...

Working memory networks for learning multiple groupings of temporally ordered events: applications to 3-D visual object recognition
Abstract Working memory neural networks which encode the invariant temporal order of sequential events that may be presented at widely differing speeds, durations, and interstimulus intervals are characterized. Working memory, a kind ...

CEDI:  A neural model of colour vision, with applications to image processing and classification
Abstract The CEDI (Contrast Enhance / Discount the Illuminant) system models a cascade of primate color vision cells: retinal ganglion, thalamic single opponent, and two types of cortical double opponents (Figure 1). A unified model ...

Brightness perception, illusory contours, and corticogeniculate feedback
Abstract A neural network model is developed to explain how visual thalamocortical interactions give rise to boundary percepts such as illusory contours and surface percepts such as filled-in brightnesses. Top-down feedback ...

The what-and-where filter: A spatial mapping neural network for object recognition and image understanding
Abstract The What-and-Where filter forms part of a neural network architecture for spatial mapping, object recognition, and image understanding. The Where filter responds to an image figure that has been separated from its ...

Adaptive resonance: an emerging neural theory of cognition
Abstract Adaptive resonance is a theory of cognitive information processing which has been realized as a family of neural network models. In recent years, these models have evolved to incorporate new capabilities in the cognitive, ...

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. ...

Why do cells compete?
Abstract This unit introduces current data about brightness constancy and contrast in visual perception, and shows that data of this kind are a consequence of a principle that holds in all cellular systems. Variations on this ...

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 ...

Linking mind to brain: The mathematics of biological intelligence
Abstract How our brains give rise to our minds is one of the most intriguing questions in all of science. We are now living in a particularly interesting time to consider this question. This is true because, during the last decade, ...

A neural model of how horizontal and interlaminar connections of visual cortex develop into adult circuits that carry out perceptual groupings and learning
Abstract A neural model suggests how horizontal and interlaminar connections in visual cortical areas V1 and V2 develop within a laminar cortical architecture and give rise to adult visual percepts. The model suggests how mechanisms ...

How does the cerebral cortex work?
Abstract A key goal of behavioral and cognitive neuroscience is to link brain mechanisms to behavioral functions. The present article describes recent progress towards explaining how the visual cortex sees. Visual cortex, like many ...

A laminar cortical model for 3D perception of slanted and curved surfaces and of 2D images
Abstract A model of laminar visual cortical dynamics proposes how 3D boundary and surface representations arise from viewing slanted and curved 3D objects and 2D images. The 3D boundary representations emerge from non-classical ...


Software


3D FORMOTION model for Vector Decomposition
Description This software implements the motion pathway of the 3D FORMOTION ...

Directional transient cells
Description This microcircuit models how direction selectivity appears in the directional transient cells, which are found in layer 4Ca of area V1 for macaques.

Below are links to source article and zipped file that contains a ...

Non-directional transient cells
Description This microcircuit models how ON magnocellular cells in Retina and lateral geniculate nucleus transiently respond to temporal luminance changes in the visual input.

Below are links to source article and zipped file that ...

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 ...

Simple Cells
Description This is a one-dimensional stand-alone implementation of the Grossberg and Todorović model of a cortical simple cell. The attached zip file contains Matlab code for the model, as well as documentation and a demonstration GUI ...

SMART network
Description This entry contains the software, implemented in the KDE Integrated NeuroSimulation Software (KInNeSS ) that simulates the Synchronous Matching Adaptive Resonance Theory. SMART was first described in Grossberg and Versace ...