Lateral Thinking about Lateral Inhibition

Visual illusion susceptibility in autism: A neural model

While atypical sensory perception is reported among individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the underlying neural mechanisms of autism that give rise to disruptions in sensory perception remain unclear. We developed a neural model with key physiological, functional and neuroanatomical parameters to investigate mechanisms underlying the range of representations of visual illusions related to orientation perception in typically developed subjects compared to individuals with ASD. Our results showed that two theorized autistic traits, excitation/inhibition imbalance and weakening of top‐down modulation, could be potential candidates for reduced susceptibility to some visual illusions. Parametric correlation between cortical suppression, balance of excitation/inhibition, feedback from higher visual areas on one hand and susceptibility to a class of visual illusions related to orientation perception on the other hand provide the opportunity to investigate the contribution and complex interactions of distinct sensory processing mechanisms in ASD. The novel approach used in this study can be used to link behavioural, functional and neuropathological studies; estimate and predict perceptual and cognitive heterogeneity in ASD; and form a basis for the development of novel diagnostics and therapeutics.

Interaction of contexts in context-dependent orientation estimation

The processing of a visual stimulus is known to be influenced by the statistics in recent visual history and by the stimulus' visual surround. Such contextual influences lead to perceptually salient phenomena, such as the tilt aftereffect and the tilt illusion. Despite much research on the influence of an isolated context, it is not clear how multiple, possibly competing sources of contextual influence interact. Here, using psychophysical methods, we compared the combined influence of multiple contexts to the sum of the isolated context influences. The results showed large deviations from linear additivity for adjacent or overlapping contexts, and remarkably, clear additivity when the contexts were sufficiently separated. Specifically, for adjacent or overlapping contexts, the combined effect was often lower than the sum of the isolated component effects (sub-additivity), or was more influenced by one component than another (selection). For contexts that were separated in time (600 ms), the combined effect measured the exact sum of the isolated component effects (in degrees of bias). Overall, the results imply an initial compressive transformation during visual processing, followed by selection between the processed parts.

The Effect of Stationary Patterns on Adaptation for Movement: Evidence for Inhibitory Interaction

Contingent movement aftereffects (CMAEs) can be demonstrated by adapting to a red pattern rotating clockwise (cw) alternating with a green pattern rotating counterclockwise (ccw). After 5 min subjects typically report stationary test patterns as apparently rotating clockwise when they are green and counterclockwise when they are red. Also, luminance thresholds for motion now depend on both the colour and direction of the moving pattern. The thresholds for red—cw and green—ccw motion will be relatively greater than for the opposite colour motion pairings. This is called contingent threshold elevation.

When stationary dots the same colour as the moving patterns are added to the adapting stimuli, subjects report weak CMAEs but no contingent threshold elevation can be demonstrated.

When stationary dots opposite in colour to the moving patterns are added to the adapting stimuli, neither CMAEs nor contingent threshold elevation can be demonstrated. And yet colour specific adaptation does occur, and can be demonstrated in the colour specificity of the simple movement aftereffect. When stationary dots are added to the adapting pattern, the simple movement aftereffect though reduced, is greatest on a test pattern of the same colour as the moving dots. These findings suggest that the CMAE, contingent threshold elevation, and the colour specificity of the movement aftereffect involves neural processes differentially sensitive to the presence of stationary patterns.

Selective Looking and the Müller-Lyer Illusion: The Effect of Changes in the Focus of Attention on the Müller-Lyer Illusion

According to a selective looking paradigm subjects were required to attend to the inward-going or outward-going components of a combined Müller-Lyer figure in which both components were present and distinguishable by colour. The amount of the illusion was found to vary according to which component the subject attended. Subsidiary findings relate the amount of the illusion to fin angle, fin length, and length of shaft.

Influences of prolonged viewing of tilted lines on perceived line orientation: the normalization and tilt after-effect

Gibson [J. Exp. Psychol. 16, 1 (1993)] observed that during prolonged viewing, a line perceptually rotates toward the nearest vertical or horizontal meridian (the normalization effect), and moreover, the perceived orientation of a subsequently presented line depends on the orientation of the adapting one (the tilt after-effect). The mechanisms of both phenomena remain poorly understood. According to our experimental results, the adapting line perceptually rotates to the nearest of three orientations: vertical, horizontal, and diagonal. We propose a simple neuronal model of orientation detectors whose responses are determined by the cardinal detectors. It is shown that both normalization and tilt after-effect may be explained by adaptation of these cardinal detectors.

Effects of orientation-selective adaptation on the Zöllner illusion

The model of inhibitory interaction between orientation detectors was examined by prolonged presentation of grating patterns (which was expected to induce orientation-selective adaptation) before measurement of the Zöllner illusion. Adaptation effects were measured under conditions which excluded intrusion by the tilt aftereffect. In experiment 1, illusion magnitude greatly decreased only when the orientation of the adapting grating was the same as that of the inducing lines, which confirmed the first prediction deduced from the model. There was no effect of adapting grating when it was oriented more than 20 degrees away from the inducing lines. In experiment 2, adaptation effects were selective not only to orientation but also to spatial frequency. In experiment 3 it was shown that illusion reduction was mediated neither by lowered apparent contrast of the inducing lines nor by retinal adaptation. The results are discussed with respect to the nature of adaptation and possible physiological correlates.

Temporal aspects of spatial adaptation. A study of the tilt aftereffect

Growth and decay characteristics of the tilt aftereffect were studied for aftereffects induced by normal or continuous adaptation routines, and for aftereffects induced by successive or spaced adaptation to the same or different orientations on an adapt-partial decay-readapt schedule. In the continuous adaptation condition, growth and decay of the aftereffect were logarithmic functions of time. There was no evidence for saturation after 30 min adaptation. Aftereffect decay following spaced adaptation progresses as by continuous adaptation, but an adapting stimulus introduced during recovery from previous adaptation is more effective on the time scale than when introduced to a fully recovered system, summing approximately linearly with the residual aftereffect and off-setting the recovery process to zero. A second adapting stimulus whose orientation is of opposite sign (ccw vs cw) induces a two-phased decay process consisting of an early cancellation and a later enhancement of the original aftereffect. A two-stage model of adaptation is proposed.

Interocular transfer of colour-contingent threshold elevation

Following adaptation to a moving coloured stimulus pattern the contrast threshold for detecting a similar moving pattern is raised. Threshold elevation is greatest when the adaptation and test patterns have the same direction of motion and the same colour. Unlike most other colour-contingent aftereffects, colour-specificity is preserved under dichoptic viewing conditions. The results are discussed in terms of possible underlying neural pathways in the visual system.

Direction-specific tilt illusion: with and without gaze fixation

The perceived orientation of a test grating is rotated from its veridical orientation if an annulus grating with a similar orientation is present. The magnitude of this misperception was measured and found to be greater when the two gratings moved in the same direction than when they moved in opposite directions. This demonstration of a direction-specific tilt illusion is similar to the previously demonstrated direction-specific tilt aftereffect--which is to be expected if similar mechanisms are responsible for both phenomena. If the tilt illusion is caused by lateral inhibition between orientation-selective units, then these findings indicate that such inhibition is principally between units with similar orientation and direction of motion selectivities.

On the non-additivity of visual tilt illusions

In Experiment I, the visual tilt illusion induced by two orthogonal lines was found to differ from the sum of the illusions induced by each line independently. The length of one of the orthogonal-inducing lines was varied in Experiment II with the other inducing line remaining a fixed length. As length increased from zero (no line) to 100%, the size of the illusion increased monotonically. The increase in illusion was not due to the increasing length of the variable line alone since, in the absence of the line of fixed length, increasing the length of the variable line produced no significant trend in the illusion (Experiment III).