A New Visual Illusion, and its Mechanism

Perception ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 333-345 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nigel D Haig

A new visual illusion is reported, in which a sine-wave grating appears to tilt when doubly sheared perpendicularly to the grating lines. It is shown that the illusory percept is related to the Münsterberg and Café Wall illusions. The probable mechanism at the root of all such illusions is postulated by reference to the neuroarchitecture of the retina and striate cortex.

1995 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 1271-1286 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Casanova ◽  
T. Savard ◽  
J. P. Nordmann ◽  
S. Molotchnikoff ◽  
K. Minville

1. Whether complex (C) cells are the only truly texture-sensitive units in the cat's primary visual cortex remains controversial. In view of the strong physiological significance of having putatively only one class of cells sensitive to visual noise in the striate cortex, we reinvestigated this issue. Sensitivities of simple (S) and C cells to noise were quantitatively studied and compared in order to clearly document the response properties of cells in the striate cortex to visual noise and to establish whether one can unequivocally segregate S from C cells on the basis of those specific properties. 2. Receptive fields were stimulated with all relevant stimuli, i.e., drifting sine-wave gratings, electronically generated noise pattern of 256 x 256 elements (ratio 1:1 of dark and light elements), and flashing and moving bars (both bright and dark). 3. A total of 60 S cells out of 85 (70.6%) and 90 C cells out of 101 (81.8%) responded to the motion of visual noise. Responses of most C cells were sustained, i.e., their discharge rate was maintained at a constant level throughout presentation of the stimulus. On the other hand, responses of the majority of S cells were characterized by several bursts of discharges. On average, optimal firing rates were greater for gratings than for noise. 4. For practically all cells, responses to noise varied as a function of direction of motion. The mean direction bandwidths were, respectively, 43 +/- 24 degrees and 48 +/- 23 degrees (mean +/- SD) for S and C cells. In both groups, neurons were more broadly tuned for the direction of noise than that of gratings (t-test, P < 0.001). We rarely observed bimodal tuning curves for noise, with each peak lying on either side of the orientation curve. These results could be expected if one considers texture stimuli not in the space domain (as dot patterns) but in the frequency domain, i.e., patterns containing all spatial frequencies and orientations. 5. In general, the direction indexes of S and C cells were similar whether they were stimulated by drifting noise or gratings. S cells had a slight tendency to be more direction selective for noise than for gratings. 6. For all S and C cells tested, responses to noise varied as a function of drift velocity. The mean optimal velocity was 12.9 and 10.2 degrees/s for S and C cells, respectively (t-test, P > 0.05). Most cells were band-pass with mean bandwidths of 2.2 and 2.7 octaves for S and C cells, respectively.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)


1997 ◽  
Vol 78 (3) ◽  
pp. 1353-1362 ◽  
Author(s):  
Earl L. Smith ◽  
Yuzo M. Chino ◽  
Jinren Ni ◽  
Han Cheng ◽  
M.L.J. Crawford ◽  
...  

Smith, Earl L., III, Yuzo M. Chino, Jinren Ni, Han Cheng, M.L.J. Crawford, and Ronald S. Harwerth. Residual binocular interactions in the striate cortex of monkeys reared with abnormal binocular vision. J. Neurophysiol. 78: 1353–1362, 1997. We investigated the nature of residual binocular interactions in the striate cortex (V1) of monkey models for the two most common causes of visual dysfunction in young children, specifically anisometropia and strabismus. Infant rhesus monkeys were raised wearing either anisometropic spectacle lenses that optically defocused one eye or ophthalmic prisms that optically produced diplopia and binocular confusion. Earlier psychophysical investigations had demonstrated that all subjects exhibited permanent binocular vision deficits and, in some cases, amblyopia. When the monkeys were adults, the responses of individual V1 neurons were studied with the use of microelectrode recording techniques while the animals were anesthetized and paralyzed. The manner in which the signals from the two eyes were combined in individual cells was investigated by dichoptically stimulating both eyes simultaneously with drifting sine wave gratings. In both lens- and prism-reared monkeys, fewer neurons had balanced ocular dominances and greater numbers of neurons were excited by only one eye. However, many neurons that appeared to be monocular exhibited clear binocular interactions during dichoptic stimulation. For the surviving binocular neurons, the maximum binocular response amplitudes were lower than normal; fewer neurons, particularly complex cells, were sensitive to relative interocular spatial phase disparities; and the remaining disparity-sensitive neurons exhibited lower degrees of binocular interaction. In prism-reared monkeys, an unusually high proportion of complex cells exhibited binocular suppression during dichoptic stimulation. Binocular contrast summation experiments showed that for both cooperative and antagonistic binocular interactions, contrast signals from the two eyes were combined by individual neurons in a normal linear fashion in both lens- and prism-reared monkeys. The observed binocular deficits appear to reflect a reduction in functional inputs from one eye and/or spatial imprecision in the monocular receptive fields rather than an aberrant form of binocular interaction. In the prism-reared monkeys, the predominance of suppression suggests that inhibitory connections were, however, less susceptible to diplopia and confusion than excitatory connections. Overall, there were many parallels between V1 physiology in our monkey models and the residual vision of humans with anisometropia or strabismus.


1996 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 559-566 ◽  
Author(s):  
John D. Allison ◽  
J. F. Kabara ◽  
R. K. Snider ◽  
V. A. Casagrande ◽  
A. B. Bonds

AbstractBlocking GABAA-receptor-mediated inhibition reduces the selectivity of striate cortical neurons for the orientation of a light bar primarily by reducing the selectivity of their onset transient (initial 200 ms) response. Blocking GABAB-receptor-mediated inhibition with phaclofen, however, is not reported to reduce the orientation selectivity of these neurons when it is measured with a light bar. We hypothesized that blocking GABAB-receptor-mediated inhibition would instead affect the orientation selectivity of cortical neurons by reducing the selectivity of their sustained response to a prolonged stimulus. To test this hypothesis, we stimulated 21 striate cortical neurons with drifting sine-wave gratings and measured their orientation selectivity before, during, and after iontophoretic injection of 2-hydroxy-saclofen (2-OH-S), a selective GABAB-receptor antagonist. 2-OH-S reduced the orientation selectivity of six of eight simple cells by an average of 28.8 (± 13.2)% and reduced the orientation selectivity of eight of 13 complex cells by an average of 32.3 (± 27.4)%. As predicted, 2-OH-S reduced the orientation selectivity of the neurons' sustained response, but did not reduce the orientation selectivity of their onset transient response. 2-OH-S also increased the length of spike “bursts” (two or more spikes with interspike intervals ≤ 8 ms) and eliminated the orientation selectivity of these bursts for six cells. These results are the first demonstration of a functional role for GABAB receptors in visual cortex and support the hypothesis that two GABA-mediated inhibitory mechanisms, one fast and the other slow, operate within the striate cortex to shape the response properties of individual neurons.


1976 ◽  
Vol 39 (6) ◽  
pp. 1334-1351 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. H. Schiller ◽  
B. L. Finlay ◽  
S. F. Volman

1. The response properties of single cells in monkey striate cortex were examined using moving bars, square-wave gratings, and sine-wave gratings. 2. The moving of cells studied were not selective for bar width or for the spatial frequency of square-wave gratings. 3. Most cells responded selectively to the spatial frequency of the sine-wave gratings. 4. The spatial frequency of the sine-wave grating eliciting the optimal response could not be predicted from the organization of the receptive field of each cell as determined by stationary or moving stimuli. 5. The sharpness of spatial-frequency selectivity is only slightly more pronounced in S-type cells than in CX-type cells. 6. S-type and CX-type cells differ significantly in the temporal modulation of their discharges to gratings. S-type cells discharge in sharp bursts to each cycle which traverses the receptive field. CX-type cells discharge in a rather continuous fashion. This measure can be used reliably to classify cells as S or CS type.


1990 ◽  
Vol 4 (02) ◽  
pp. 101-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Curtis L. Baker

AbstractMeasurements were made of the optimal velocity for drifting bar-shaped stimuli to excite striate cortex neurons of the cat. These data were compared to the optimal spatial and temporal frequencies of the same neurons, as determined with drifting sine-wave grating stimuli. A systematic relationship was revealed, whereby those neurons preferring higher velocities of bar motion also preferred lower spatial and higher temporal frequencies of gratings. The optimal bar velocity for a given neuron could be quantitatively predicted from the ratio of that neuron's optimal temporal frequency to its optimal spatial frequency.


1962 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 169-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Green

The term geo-sciences has been used here to include the disciplines geology, geophysics and geochemistry. However, in order to apply geophysics and geochemistry effectively one must begin with a geological model. Therefore, the science of geology should be used as the basis for lunar exploration. From an astronomical point of view, a lunar terrain heavily impacted with meteors appears the more reasonable; although from a geological standpoint, volcanism seems the more probable mechanism. A surface liberally marked with volcanic features has been advocated by such geologists as Bülow, Dana, Suess, von Wolff, Shaler, Spurr, and Kuno. In this paper, both the impact and volcanic hypotheses are considered in the application of the geo-sciences to manned lunar exploration. However, more emphasis is placed on the volcanic, or more correctly the defluidization, hypothesis to account for lunar surface features.


2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Navin Viswanathan ◽  
James S. Magnuson ◽  
Carol A. Fowler
Keyword(s):  

1916 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 228-228
Author(s):  
English Bagby
Keyword(s):  

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