The lingering effects of an artificial blind spot

Neural correlates of lateral modulation and perceptual filling-in in center-surround radial sinusoidal gratings: an fMRI study

We investigated lateral modulation effects with functional magnetic resonance imaging. We presented radial sinusoidal gratings in random sequence: a scotoma grating with two arc-shaped blank regions (scotomata) in the periphery, one in the left and one in the right visual field, a center grating containing pattern only in the scotoma regions, and a full-field grating where the pattern occupied the whole screen. On each trial, one of the three gratings flickered in counterphase for 10 s, followed by a blank period. Observers were instructed to perform a fixation task and report whether filling-in was experienced during the scotoma condition. The results showed that the blood-oxygen-level-dependent signal was reduced in areas corresponding to the scotoma regions in the full-field compared to the center condition in V1 to V3 areas, indicating a lateral inhibition effect when the surround was added to the center pattern. The univariate analysis results showed no difference between the filling-in and no-filling-in trials. However, multivariate pattern analysis results showed that classifiers trained on activation pattern in V1 to V3 could differentiate between filling-in and no-filling-in trials, suggesting that the neural activation pattern in visual cortex correlated with the subjective percept.

Lateral modulation of orientation perception in center-surround sinusoidal stimuli: Divisive inhibition in perceptual filling-in

The perception of a target stimulus may be altered by its context. Perceptual filling-in is thought to be one example of lateral modulation, in which the percept of a central blank area is replaced by that of the surround. We investigated the mechanisms in eccentric vision underlying filling-in by selectively adapting the center (pedestal adapter), surround (annulus adapter), or both (disk adapter) in a sinusoidal grating and observed how the adaptation influences the orientation percept of a subsequently presented Gabor target, located at the same position as the adapter center. In a binary choice task, observers were to judge the orientation (clockwise or counterclockwise) of the target after adaptation. The tilt aftereffect (TAE), corresponding to an illusory tilt of a physically vertical Gabor target, depended both on the adapter orientation and the adapter type. The TAE, peaked between 10 degrees and 20 degrees adapter orientation, was strongest in the pedestal, followed by the disk, and weakest in the annulus adapter conditions. The difference between the disk and pedestal conditions implies lateral inhibition from the surround. Lacking physical overlap with the target, the annulus adapter nonetheless induced a small but significant TAE in the central area. The effect of filling-in on the TAE was estimated by comparing the results from trials with and without subjectively reported filling-in during adaptation to the annulus adapter. The TAE was greater when filling-in occurred during adaptation, suggesting a stronger lateral modulation effect on trials where filling-in was induced. The data were fit by a variant of a divisive inhibition model, in which the adaptation effect is captured by the increase of an additive constant in the denominator of the response function, whereas the surround modulation in the adapter is modeled by an excitatory sensitivity in the numerator.

Homeostatic plasticity in human extrastriate cortex following a simulated peripheral scotoma

Neuroimaging and patient work over the past decade have indicated that, following retinal deafferentation, the human visual cortex undergoes a large-scale and enduring reorganization of its topography such that the classical retinotopic organization of deafferented visual cortex remaps to represent non-classical regions of visual space. Such long-term visual reorganization is proposed to occur through changes in the functional balance of deafferented visual circuits that engage more lasting changes through activity-dependent neuroplasticity. Here, we investigated the short-term changes in functional balance (short-term plasticity; homeostatic plasticity) that occur within deafferented human visual cortices. We recorded electroencephalogram (EEG) while observers were conditioned for 6 s with a simulated retinal scotoma (artificial scotoma) positioned 8.0° in the periphery. Visual evoked potentials (VEPs) evoked by the onset of sinusoidal visual probes that varied in their tilt were used to examine changes in cortical excitability within and around cortical representations of the simulated scotoma. Psychophysical orientation functions obtained from discrimination of visual probe tilt were used to examine alterations in the stimulus selectivity within the scotoma representations. Consistent with a mechanism of homeostatic disinhibition, an early extrastriate component of the VEP (the early phase P1) exhibited increased amplitude following the condition with a simulated scotoma relative to a stimulus-matched control condition. This increased visual cortical response was associated with a reduction in the slope of the psychophysical orientation function, suggesting a broader tuning of neural populations within scotoma representations. Together, these findings support a mechanism of disinhibition in promoting visual plasticity and topographical reorganization.

Recalibration of the auditory continuity illusion: sensory and decisional effects

An interrupted sound can be perceived as continuous when noise masks the interruption, creating an illusion of continuity. Recent findings have shown that adaptor sounds preceding an ambiguous target sound can influence listeners' rating of target continuity. However, it remains unclear whether these aftereffects on perceived continuity influence sensory processes, decisional processes (i.e., criterion shifts), or both. The present study addressed this question. Results show that the target sound was more likely to be rated as 'continuous' when preceded by adaptors that were perceived as clearly discontinuous than when it was preceded by adaptors that were heard (illusorily or veridically) as continuous. Detection-theory analyses indicated that these contrastive aftereffects reflect a combination of sensory and decisional processes. The contrastive sensory aftereffect persisted even when adaptors and targets were presented to opposite ears, suggesting a neural origin in structures that receive binaural inputs. Finally, physically identical but perceptually ambiguous adaptors that were rated as 'continuous' induced more reports of target continuity than adaptors that were rated as 'discontinuous'. This assimilative aftereffect was purely decisional. These findings confirm that judgments of auditory continuity can be influenced by preceding events, and reveal that these aftereffects have both sensory and decisional components.

The twinkle aftereffect is pre-cortical and is independent of filling-in

A real or artificial scotoma within a dynamic noise field fills in within a few seconds. When the dynamic noise is replaced with a homogenous field, a twinkling after effect (TwAE) is induced exclusively in the location of the former scotoma. We are employing the appearance of the TwAE to perform rapid perimetry in patients with retinal scotomas. To analyze the loci within the visual system and the mechanisms of filling-in and the TwAE, we examined their orientation tuning, inter-ocular transfer, and threshold versus contrast functions by measuring contrast detection thresholds for stimuli presented in areas that were filled-in or contained the TwAE. For filling-in, detection thresholds were narrowly tuned for orientation, transferred interocularly, and rose monotonically with the contrast of a surround pattern. These results indicate that surround suppression and filling-in involve inhibitory processes originating at cortical stages of visual processing. Threshold versus contrast functions were weakly dipper-shaped for the TwAE, did not transfer inter-ocularly, and were not tuned for orientation. These results indicate that the TwAE involves additive noise that is pre-cortical in origin and that it is distinct from filling-in.

A 'dipper' function for texture discrimination based on orientation variance

We measured the just-noticeable difference (JND) in orientation variance between two textures (Figure 1) as we varied the baseline (pedestal) variance present in both textures. JND's first fell as pedestal variance increased and then rose, producing a 'dipper' function similar to those previously reported for contrast, blur, and orientation-contrast discriminations. A dipper function (both facilitation and masking) is predicted on purely statistical grounds by a noisy variance-discrimination mechanism. However, for two out of three observers, the dipper function was significantly better fit when the mechanism was made incapable of discriminating between small sample variances. We speculate that a threshold nonlinearity like this prevents the visual system from including its intrinsic noise in texture representations and suggest that similar thresholds prevent the visibility of other artifacts that sensory coding would otherwise introduce, such as blur.

Illusory stimuli can be used to identify retinal blind spots

BACKGROUND

Identification of visual field loss in people with retinal disease is not straightforward as people with eye disease are frequently unaware of substantial deficits in their visual field, as a consequence of perceptual completion ("filling-in") of affected areas.

METHODOLOGY

We attempted to induce a compelling visual illusion known as the induced twinkle after-effect (TwAE) in eight patients with retinal scotomas. Half of these patients experience filling-in of their scotomas such that they are unaware of the presence of their scotoma, and conventional campimetric techniques can not be used to identify their vision loss. The region of the TwAE was compared to microperimetry maps of the retinal lesion.

PRINCIPAL FINDINGS

Six of our eight participants experienced the TwAE. This effect occurred in three of the four people who filled-in their scotoma. The boundary of the TwAE showed good agreement with the boundary of lesion, as determined by microperimetry.

CONCLUSION

For the first time, we have determined vision loss by asking patients to report the presence of an illusory percept in blind areas, rather than the absence of a real stimulus. This illusory technique is quick, accurate and not subject to the effects of filling-in.