V1 neurons are tuned to perceptual borders in natural scenes

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Papale, Paolo; Zuiderbaan, Wietske; Teeuwen, Rob R. M.; Gilhuis, Amparo; Self, Matthew W.; Roelfsema, Pieter R.; Dumoulin, Serge O.
• 署名单位: Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts & Sciences; Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience (NIN-KNAW); Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts & Sciences; Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience (NIN-KNAW); Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts & Sciences; Spinoza Centre for Neuroimaging (KNAW); Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam; University of Amsterdam; Academic Medical Center Amsterdam; Sorbonne Universite; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); Institut National de la Sante et de la Recherche Medicale (Inserm); Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam; Utrecht University
• 刊物名称: PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0027-9716
• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2221623121
• 发表日期: 2024-11-12
• 关键词: figure-ground segregation; human visual-cortex; areas v1; attention; v4; feedforward; performance; OWNERSHIP; contrast; MODEL

摘要

The visual system needs to identify perceptually relevant borders to segment complex natural scenes. The primary visual cortex (V1) is thought to extract local borders, and higher visual areas are thought to identify the perceptually relevant borders between objects and the background. To test this conjecture, we used natural images that had been annotated by human observers who marked the perceptually relevant borders. We assessed the effect of perceptual relevance on V1 responses using human neuroimaging, macaque electrophysiology, and computational modeling. We report that perceptually relevant borders elicit stronger responses in the early visual cortex than irrelevant ones, even if simple features, such as contrast and the energy of oriented filters, are matched. Moreover, V1 neurons discriminate perceptually relevant borders surprisingly fast, during the early feedforward-driven activity at a latency of similar to 50 ms, indicating that they are tuned to the features that characterize them. We also revealed a delayed, contextual effect that enhances the V1 responses that are elicited by perceptually relevant borders at a longer latency. Our results reveal multiple mechanisms that allow V1 neurons to infer the layout of objects in natural images.