Masking of figure-ground and features by surround inhibition: A spiking model

A visual stimulus can be made invisible, i.e. masked, by the presentation of a second stimulus. In the sensory cortex, neural responses to a masked stimulus are suppressed, yet how this suppression comes about is still debated. Inhibitory models explain masking by asserting that the mask exerts an i...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Supèr, Hendrik Anne, Romeo Val, August
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2011
País:España
Institución:Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya)
Repositorio:Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya
OAI Identifier:oai:recercat.cat:2445/69712
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2445/69712
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Còrtex visual
Neurones
Visió
Visual cortex
Neurons
Visión
Descripción
Sumario:A visual stimulus can be made invisible, i.e. masked, by the presentation of a second stimulus. In the sensory cortex, neural responses to a masked stimulus are suppressed, yet how this suppression comes about is still debated. Inhibitory models explain masking by asserting that the mask exerts an inhibitory influence on the responses of a neuron evoked by the target. However, other models argue that the masking interferes with recurrent or reentrant processing. Using computer modeling, we show that surround inhibition evoked by ON and OFF responses to the mask suppresses the responses to a briefly presented stimulus in forward and backward masking paradigms. Our model results resemble several previously described psychophysical and neurophysiological findings in perceptual masking experiments and are in line with earlier theoretical descriptions of masking. We suggest that precise spatiotemporal influence of surround inhibition is relevant for visual detection.