Mitigating Perceptual Error in Synthetic Animatronics using Visual Feature Flow

A mediolateral gradation in neural responses for images spanning animals to artificial objects is observed in the ventral temporal cortex (VTC). Which information streams drive this organisation is an ongoing debate. Recently, in Proklova et al. (2016), the visual shape and category (“animacy”) dimensions in a set of stimuli were dissociated using a behavioural measure of visual feature information. fMRI responses revealed a neural cluster (extra-visual animacy cluster - xVAC) which encoded category information unexplained by visual feature information, suggesting extra-visual contributions to the organisation in the ventral visual stream. We reassess these findings using Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) as models for the ventral visual stream. The visual features developed in the CNN layers can categorise the shape-matched stimuli from Proklova et al. (2016) in contrast to the behavioural measures used in the study. The category organisations in xVAC and VTC are explained to a large degree by the CNN visual feature differences, casting doubt over the suggestion that visual feature differences cannot account for the animacy organisation. To inform the debate further, we designed a set of stimuli with animal images to dissociate the animacy organisation driven by the CNN visual features from the degree of familiarity and agency (thoughtfulness and feelings). Preliminary results from a new fMRI experiment designed to understand the contribution of these non-visual features are presented.

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A General-Purpose Mechanism of Visual Feature Association at the Core of Word Learning

SSRN Electronic Journal ◽

10.2139/ssrn.3653547 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Yamil Vidal ◽

Eva Viviani ◽

Davide Zoccolan ◽

Davide Crepaldi

Keyword(s):

Word Learning ◽

General Purpose ◽

Visual Feature ◽

The Core ◽

Feature Association

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Direct Realism and Illusion

10.1093/oso/9780190854751.003.0008 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

J. Christopher Maloney

Keyword(s):

Perceptual Experience ◽

Direct Realism ◽

Perceptual Representation ◽

Perceptual Error ◽

Standard Response ◽

Perceptual Representations ◽

Ambiguous Stimuli ◽

Physical Objects ◽

Apparent Problem

The supposed problem of perceptual error, including illusion and hallucination, has led most theories of perception to deny formulations of direct realism. The standard response to this apparent problem adopts the mistaken presupposition that perception is indeed liable to error. However, the prevailing conditions of observation are themselves elements of perceptual representation, functioning in the manner of predicate modifiers. They ensure that the predicates applied in perceptual representations do indeed correctly attribute properties that perceived physical objects actually instantiate. Thus, perceptual representations are immune to misrepresentation of the sort misguidedly supposed by the spurious problem of perceptual misrepresentation. Granted the possibility that perceptual attribution admits of predicate modification, it is quite possible that perceptual experience permits both rudimentary and sophisticated conceptualization. Moreover, such treatment of perceptual predication rewards by providing an account of aspect alteration exemplified by perception of ambiguous stimuli.

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