title: Stereoscopic illusory contours--cortical neuron responses and human perception.
abstract: In human perception, figure-ground segregation suggests that stereoscopic cues are grouped over wide areas of the visual field. For example, two abutting rectangles of equal luminance and size are seen as a uniform surface when presented at the same depth, but appear as two surfaces separated by an illusory contour and a step in depth when presented with different retinal disparities. Here, we describe neurons in the monkey visual cortex that signal such illusory contours and can be selective for certain figure-ground directions that human observers perceive at these contours. The results suggest that these neurons group stereoscopic cues over distances up to 8 degrees. In addition, we compare these results with human perception and show that the mean stimulus parameters required by these neurons also induce optimal percepts of illusory contours in human observers.
authors.affiliation: Yale University, USA.
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Heider
authors.forename: Lothar
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Spillmann
authors.forename: Esther
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Peterhans
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D003867:Depth Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D005074:Evoked Potentials, Visual / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D005556:Form Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008253:Macaca mulatta; D008297:Male; D009474:Neurons / Q000145:classification / Q000502:physiology*; D009903:Optical Illusions / Q000502:physiology*; D009949:Orientation; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*