Abstract
The broad goal of research in my laboratory is to understand how visual form is encoded in the intermediate stages of the ventral visual pathway, how these representations arise and how they contribute to object recognition behavior. Our current focus is primate V4, an area known to be critical for form processing. Given the enormity of the shape-encoding problem, our strategy has been to test specific hypotheses with custom-designed, parametric, artificial stimuli. With guidance from shape theory, computer-vision and psychophysical literature we identify stimulus features (for example T-junctions) that might be critical in natural vision and work these into our stimulus design so as to progress in a controlled fashion toward more naturalistic stimuli. I will present examples from our past and current experiments that successfully employ this strategy and have led to the discovery of boundary curvature as a basis for shape encoding in area V4. I will conclude with some brief thoughts on how we might move from the highly-controlled stimuli we currently use to the more rich and complex stimuli of natural vision.
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2014