2018年07月23日 12:15 〜 13:15
CiNet 1F 大会議室 （A）
波間智行
Department of Biological Structure
University of Washington
Abstract:
Occlusions make object recognition a challenging problem. Primate inferior temporal (IT) cortex, the final stage of form processing along the ventral visual pathway, is likely important [1-2], but the specific role of IT responses in recognizing occluded objects is largely unknown. In the present study, we asked how IT neurons encode information about occluding and occluded objects and how those signals might subserve shape discrimination under occlusion.
We studied the responses of single IT neurons as animals performed a sequential shape discrimination task. In order to investigate how are the signals about shape and signals about occluder encoded in the IT neurons, shape selectivity to occluded object at different occlusion levels was analyzed in individual or population IT responses. Our results suggest that the shape of the occluded object and the total area of the occluding dots predominantly modulated the responses of IT neurons. Based on overall results, we propose that the representation of IT neurons may reflect the appearance of visual stimulus rather than the segmented components of visual stimulus under the partial occlusion.
[1] Hegde J, Fang F, Murray SO, Kersten D (2008). J Vis 8:16.11-16.
[2] Kovacs G, Vogels R, Orban GA (1995). J Neurosci 15:1984-1997.