A Cortical Mechanism Underlying the Perception of Bar Orientation in Tilt Illusions Based on Figure Segmentation and Population Coding

摘要

We propose a computational model for the perception of bar orientation including tilt illusions wherein the perceived orientation of a bar is altered by the presence of another intersecting bar. The model is based on the perceptual segmentation of an input image and population coding of the cell activities distributed retinotopically. We investigate the retinotopic distribution of cell responses to bar junctions by simulating a large-scale recurrent network which reproduces the important functions of the primary visual cortex. The simulation results show that at most retinotopic positions. cells tuned to a few to thirty degrees different from the actual bar orientation respond most strongly, not cells tuned exactly to the bar orientation.