Spatial Vision: Primary Visual

Cortex
(Chapter 3, part 1)

Lecture 6

Jonathan Pillow
Sensation & Perception
(PSY 345 / NEU 325)
Princeton University, Spring 2015
1
Chapter 2 remnants

2
 Receptive field: “what makes a neuron fire”

• weighting function that the neuron uses to add up

its inputs”

Response to a dim light

patch of light

light=+1 light level

-
+
1×(+5) + 1×(-4) = +1 spikes
- + ++ -
+
“center” “surround”
- weight weight
ON cell
3
 Receptive field: “what makes a neuron fire”

• weighting function that the neuron uses to add up

its inputs”

Response to a spot of light

patch of bright light

light level
-
+
1×(+5) + 0×(-4) = +5 spikes
- + ++ -
+
“center” “surround”
- weight weight
ON cell
4
Mach Bands
! Each stripe has
constant luminance
(“light level”)

5
Response to a bright light

light=+2 higher light level

-
+
2×(+5) + 2×(-4) = +2 spikes
- + ++ -
+
“center” “surround”
- weight weight

6
Response to an edge

+2 +1
-
+
- + ++ - 2×(+5) + 2×(-3) + 1×(-1) = +3 spikes
+
- “center”
“surround”
weight
weight
7
 Mach Band response

+2 +2 +2 +3 0 +1 +1 +1
+2 +2 +2 +3 0 +1 +1 +1
+2 +2 +2 +3 0 +1 +1 +1
+2 +2 +2 +3 0 +1 +1 +1
+2 +2 +2 +3 0 +1 +1 +1
+2 +2 +2 +3 0 +1 +1 +1
+2 +1
-
+
- + ++ - 2×(+5) + 2×(-3) + 1×(-1) = +3 spikes
+
- “center”
“surround”
weight
weight
8
 edges are where light difference is greatest
Mach Band response

Response to an edge
+2 +2 +2 +3 0 +1 +1 +1
+2 +2 +2 +3 0 +1 +1 +1
+2 +2 +2 +3 0 +1 +1 +1
+2 +2 +2 +3 0 +1 +1 +1
+2 +2 +2 +3 0 +1 +1 +1
+2 +2 +2 +3 0 +1 +1 +1
+2 +1
-
+
- + ++ - 2×(+5) + 2×(-3) + 1×(-1) = +3 spikes
+
- “center”
“surround”
weight
weight
9
Also explains:

Lightness illusion

10
Figure 2.12 Different types of retinal ganglion cells

ON and OFF retinal ganglion cells’ dendrites arborize (“extend”)

in different layers:

Parvocellular Magnocellular
(“small”, feed pathway processing (“big”, feed pathway processing
shape, color) motion)

11
 “Channels” in visual processing

ON, M-cells (light stuff, big, moving)

Incoming OFF, M-cells (dark stuff, big, moving) the

Light
brain
ON, P-cells (light, fine shape / color)

OFF, P-cells (dark, fine shape / color)

The Retina Optic Nerve

12
Luminance adaptation
remarkable things about the human visual system:
• incredible range of luminance levels to which we can adapt
(six orders of magnitude, or 1million times difference)

Two mechanisms for luminance adaptation

(adaptation to levels of dark and light):
(1) Pupil dilation
(2) Photoreceptors and their photopigment levels

the more light, the more

photopigment gets “used up”,
→ less available photopigment,
→ retina becomes less sensitive
13
The possible range of pupil sizes in bright illumination versus dark

• 16 times more light

entering the eye
14
Luminance adaptation
- adaptation to light and dark

• It turns out: we’re pretty bad at estimating the overall light level.
• All we really need (from an evolutionary standpoint), is to be able
to recognize objects regardless of the light level
• This can be done using light differences, also known as “contrast”.

Contrast = difference in light level, divided by overall light level

(Think back to Weber’s law!)

15
 Luminance adaptation

-4 +5 Contast is (roughly) what retinal neurons

compute, taking the difference between
light in the center and surround!

“center-surround”
receptive field

Contrast = difference in light level, divided by overall light level

(Think back to Weber’s law!)

• from an “image compression” standpoint, it’s better to just

send information about local differences in light
16
 summary: Chap 2

• transduction: changing energy from one state to another

• Retina: photoreceptors, opsins, chromophores, dark

current, bipolar cells, retinal ganglion cells.

• “backward” design of the retina

• rods, cones; their relative concentrations in the eye

• Blind spot & “filling in”

• Receptive field

• ON / OFF, M / P channels in retina

• contrast, Mach band illusion

• Light adaptation: pupil dilation and photopigment cycling

17
Now that you know how the early visual
system works....

a little update on futuristic technology:

18
Device Offers Partial Vision for the Blind (Feb 2013)
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/15/health/fda-approves-technology-to-give-limited-vision-to-blind-people.html

• shows patterns of light and • 60 electrodes

dark, like the “pixelized image we • future versions to have 200, 1000
see on a stadium scoreboard,” electrodes
19
 [movie]

http://www.nytimes.com/video/science/100000002039719/the-fda-approves-a-bionic-eye.html

20
3
Spatial Vision:
From Stars to Stripes

21
 Motivation
We’ve now learned:
• how the eye (like a camera) forms an image.
• how the retina processes that image to extract contrast
(with “center-surround” receptive fields)

Next:
• how does the brain begin processing that information
to extract a visual interpretation?

22
early visual pathway eye eye

optic nerve

optic chiasm

optic tract

lateral geniculate
thalamus:
nucleus (LGN)

optic radiations

cortex: primary visual

cortex (“V1”)
right visual left visual
(aka “striate cortex”) world world
23
• Acuity: measure of finest visual detail that
can be resolved

24
Visual Acuity
• in the lab

• Acuity: The smallest spatial detail that can be

resolved

25
Measuring Visual Acuity
Snellen E test
• Herman Snellen invented this method for designating visual acuity
in 1862
• Notice that the strokes on the E form a small grating pattern

26
Acuity
eye doctor: 20 / 20 (your distance / avg person’s distance) for
letter identification
vision scientist: visual angle of one cycle of the finest grating you
can see

27
28
 stimulus on retina
explaining acuity

• striped pattern is a “sine

wave grating”
• visual system “samples” the
grating at cone locations

acuity limit: 1’ of arc

cone spacing in fovea:
0.5’ of arc

percept
29
 more “channels”: spatial frequency channels

spatial frequency: the number of cycles of a grating per unit

of visual angle (usually specified in degrees)
• think of it as: # of bars per unit length

low frequency intermediate high frequency

30
Visual Acuity:

Why sine gratings?

• The visual system breaks down images into a vast
number of components; each is a sine wave grating with
a particular spatial frequency

Technical term: Fourier decomposition

31
Fourier decomposition
• mathematical decomposition of an image (or sound)
into sine waves.
reconstruction:
“image”
1 sine wave

2 sine waves

3 sine waves

4 sine waves

32
 “Fourier Decomposition” theory of V1
claim: role of V1 is to do “Fourier decomposition”, i.e., break
images down into a sum of sine waves

• Summation of two spatial sine

waves
• any pattern can be broken
down into a sum of sine waves

33
Fourier decomposition
• mathematical decomposition of an image (or sound)
into sine waves.

Original image High Frequencies Low Frequencies

34
 original

low medium high

35
Retinal Ganglion Cells: tuned to spatial frequency

Response of a ganglion
cell to sine gratings of
different frequencies

36
The contrast sensitivity function

Human contrast sensitivity illustration of this sensitivity

37
Image Illustrating Spatial Frequency Channels

38
Image Illustrating Spatial Frequency Channels

39
If it is hard to tell who this famous person is, try
squinting or defocusing

“Lincoln illusion” Harmon & Jules 1973

40
“Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea, which at 30 meters
becomes the portrait of Abraham Lincoln (Homage to Rothko)”

- Salvador Dali (1976)

41
“Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea, which at 30 meters
becomes the portrait of Abraham Lincoln (Homage to Rothko)”

- Salvador Dali (1976)

42
 Summary

• early visual pathway: retina -> LGN -> V1

• “contralateral” representations in visual
pathway
• visual acuity (vs. sensitivity)
• spatial frequency channels
• Fourier analysis

43