The architecture of visual cortex and inferential processes in vision.
This paper is organised approximately into two halves. In the first half, I review evidence about the structure of the visual system, and I use that evidence to frame what I think are widely held but often implicit ideas about how it works, namely that vision is principally analysis of retinal input. These ideas have been strongly influenced by engineering approaches; form a default view of the visual system that suffuses all the language used to describe it (at least in visual neuroscience); and are to some extent supported by the structural evidence. In the second half, I explore some inconvenient facts from neuroanatomy and neurophysiology which are quite uncomfortable for the traditional view. I then set out a contrary view of how structure and function are linked in the visual system, which is a neurobiological variety of the quite developed view in psychophysics that vision is better understood as knowledge-rich inference. Finally, I explore some of the ramifications of this view for neurophysiological understanding of how the visual system might operate during normal vision.
Young
M P
MP
Department of Psychology, Claremont Place, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. m.p.young@ncl.ac.uk
D000818:Animals; D006801:Humans; D009482:Neurophysiology / Q000379:methods; D014785:Vision, Ocular / Q000502:physiology*; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology