The feature-binding problem is an ill-posed problem

2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. 317-321 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vincent Di Lollo
Keyword(s):  
Feature Binding ◽  
Binding Problem ◽  
Ill Posed

A Cross-Species Investigation of Acetylcholine, Attention, and Feature Binding

2008 ◽  
Vol 19 (11) ◽  
pp. 1185-1193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leigh C.P. Botly ◽  
Eve De Rosa
Keyword(s):  
Animal Model ◽  
Sensory Information ◽  
Feature Binding ◽  
Binding Problem ◽  
Attentional Processes ◽  
Neural Representations ◽  
Human Attention ◽  
Feature Conjunction ◽  
Patterns Of Behavior ◽  
Attentional System

The binding problem is the brain's fundamental challenge to integrate sensory information to form a unified representation of a stimulus. A recent nonhuman animal model suggests that acetylcholine serves as the neuromodulatory substrate for feature binding. We hypothesized that this animal model of cholinergic contributions to feature binding may be an analogue of human attention. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a cross-species study in which rats and humans learned comparable intramodal feature-conjunction (FC) and feature-singleton (FS) tasks. We challenged the cholinergic system of rats using the muscarinic antagonist scopolamine (0.2 mg/kg) and challenged the attentional system of humans by dividing attention. The two manipulations yielded strikingly similar patterns of behavior, impairing FC acquisition, while sparing FS acquisition and FC retrieval. These cross-species findings support the hypothesis that cholinergically driven attentional processes are essential to feature binding at encoding, but are not required for retrieval of neural representations of bound stimuli.

scholarly journals A new approach to solving the feature-binding problem in primate vision

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 20180021 ◽  
Author(s):  
James B. Isbister ◽  
Akihiro Eguchi ◽  
Nasir Ahmad ◽  
Juan M. Galeazzi ◽  
Mark J. Buckley ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Temporal Structure ◽  
Visual Stimuli ◽  
Spike Timing ◽  
Feature Binding ◽  
Visual Features ◽  
Binding Problem ◽  
Primate Vision ◽  
Spatio Temporal

We discuss a recently proposed approach to solve the classic feature-binding problem in primate vision that uses neural dynamics known to be present within the visual cortex. Broadly, the feature-binding problem in the visual context concerns not only how a hierarchy of features such as edges and objects within a scene are represented, but also the hierarchical relationships between these features at every spatial scale across the visual field. This is necessary for the visual brain to be able to make sense of its visuospatial world. Solving this problem is an important step towards the development of artificial general intelligence. In neural network simulation studies, it has been found that neurons encoding the binding relations between visual features, known as binding neurons, emerge during visual training when key properties of the visual cortex are incorporated into the models. These biological network properties include (i) bottom-up, lateral and top-down synaptic connections, (ii) spiking neuronal dynamics, (iii) spike timing-dependent plasticity, and (iv) a random distribution of axonal transmission delays (of the order of several milliseconds) in the propagation of spikes between neurons. After training the network on a set of visual stimuli, modelling studies have reported observing the gradual emergence of polychronization through successive layers of the network, in which subpopulations of neurons have learned to emit their spikes in regularly repeating spatio-temporal patterns in response to specific visual stimuli. Such a subpopulation of neurons is known as a polychronous neuronal group (PNG). Some neurons embedded within these PNGs receive convergent inputs from neurons representing lower- and higher-level visual features, and thus appear to encode the hierarchical binding relationship between features. Neural activity with this kind of spatio-temporal structure robustly emerges in the higher network layers even when neurons in the input layer represent visual stimuli with spike timings that are randomized according to a Poisson distribution. The resulting hierarchical representation of visual scenes in such models, including the representation of hierarchical binding relations between lower- and higher-level visual features, is consistent with the hierarchical phenomenology or subjective experience of primate vision and is distinct from approaches interested in segmenting a visual scene into a finite set of objects.

Visual Feature Binding in Early Infancy

Perception ◽  
10.1068/p3167 ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 273-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gentaro Taga ◽  
Tomohiro Ikejiri ◽  
Tatsushi Tachibana ◽  
Shinsuke Shimojo ◽  
Atsuhiro Soeda ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Selective Attention ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Feature Binding ◽  
Human Infant ◽  
Feature Integration ◽  
Functional Difference ◽  
Visual Feature ◽  
Binding Problem ◽  
Neural Basis

How does the developing brain of the human infant solve the feature-binding problem when visual stimuli consisting of multiple colored objects are presented? A habituation–dishabituation procedure revealed that 1-month-old infants have the ability to discriminate changes in the conjunction of a familiar shape and color in two objects. However, this good earlier performance was followed by poorer performance at 2 months of age. The performance improved again at 3 months of age. Detailed analysis of the oculomotor behaviors revealed that the age of 2 months was a period of drastic transition when the tendency to stay with the fixated objects disappeared and repetitive saccades between the two objects emerged. Our findings suggest that the ability to perceive conjunctions of features is available to infants very early, that the perceptual/neural basis at 1 and at 3 months of age may be fundamentally different, and that feature integration by vigorous eye movements or selective attention may be the key functional difference between the age groups.

scholarly journals Feature binding, attention and object perception

1998 ◽  
Vol 353 (1373) ◽  
pp. 1295-1306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Treisman
Keyword(s):  
Parietal Cortex ◽  
Object Perception ◽  
Feature Binding ◽  
Binding Problem ◽  
Binding Process ◽  
Visual Processes ◽  
Indirect Measures ◽  
Neurological Patients ◽  
The Way

The seemingly effortless ability to perceive meaningful objects in an integrated scene actually depends on complex visual processes. The ‘binding problem’ concerns the way in which we select and integrate the separate features of objects in the correct combinations. Experiments suggest that attention plays a central role in solving this problem. Some neurological patients show a dramatic breakdown in the ability to see several objects; their deficits suggest a role for the parietal cortex in the binding process. However, indirect measures of priming and interference suggest that more information may be implicitly available than we can consciously access.

VISUAL FEATURE BINDING WITHIN THE SELECTIVE TUNING ATTENTION FRAMEWORK

2008 ◽  
Vol 22 (05) ◽  
pp. 861-881 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALBERT L. ROTHENSTEIN ◽  
ANTONIO J. RODRÍGUEZ-SÁNCHEZ ◽  
EVGUENI SIMINE ◽  
JOHN K. TSOTSOS
Keyword(s):  
Visual Processing ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Feature Binding ◽  
Visual Feature ◽  
Binding Problem ◽  
Unified Framework ◽  
Primate Brain ◽  
Gradual Loss ◽  
Primate Vision

We present a biologically plausible computational model for solving the visual feature binding problem, based on recent results regarding the time course and processing sequence in the primate visual system. The feature binding problem appears due to the distributed nature of visual processing in the primate brain, and the gradual loss of spatial information along the processing hierarchy. This paper puts forward the proposal that by using multiple passes of the visual processing hierarchy, both bottom-up and top-down, and using task information to tune the processing prior to each pass, we can explain the different recognition behaviors that primate vision exhibits. To accomplish this, four different kinds of binding processes are introduced and are tied directly to specific recognition tasks and their time course. The model relies on the reentrant connections so ubiquitous in the primate brain to recover spatial information, and thus allow features represented in different parts of the brain to be integrated in a unitary conscious percept. We show how different tasks and stimuli have different binding requirements, and present a unified framework within the Selective Tuning model of visual attention.

Information and estimation in image processing

1987 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 14-17
Author(s):  
B. Roy Frieden
Keyword(s):  
Image Processing ◽  
Optical System ◽  
Large Amplitude ◽  
Communication Theory ◽  
Image Data ◽  
Direct Approach ◽  
Ill Posed

Despite the skill and determination of electro-optical system designers, the images acquired using their best designs often suffer from blur and noise. The aim of an “image enhancer” such as myself is to improve these poor images, usually by digital means, such that they better resemble the true, “optical object,” input to the system. This problem is notoriously “ill-posed,” i.e. any direct approach at inversion of the image data suffers strongly from the presence of even a small amount of noise in the data. In fact, the fluctuations engendered in neighboring output values tend to be strongly negative-correlated, so that the output spatially oscillates up and down, with large amplitude, about the true object. What can be done about this situation? As we shall see, various concepts taken from statistical communication theory have proven to be of real use in attacking this problem. We offer below a brief summary of these concepts.

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