Biomedical subjects

Alan W Freeman

Publications and source records attributed to Alan W Freeman.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2005

Multistage model for binocular rivalry.

Binocular rivalry is the alternating perception that occurs when incompatible stimuli are presented to the two eyes: one monocular stimulus dominates vision and then the other stimulus dominates, with a perceptual switch occurring every few seconds. There is a need for a binocular rivalry model that accounts for both well-established results on the timing of dominance intervals and for more recent evidence on the distributed neural processing of rivalry. The model for binocular rivalry developed here consists of four parallel visual channels, two driven by the left eye and two by the right. Each channel consists of several consecutive processing stages representing successively higher cortical levels, with mutual inhibition between the channels at each stage. All stages are architecturally identical. With n the number of stages, the model is implemented as 4n nonlinear differential equations using a total of eight parameters. Despite the simplicity of its architecture, the model accounts for a variety of experimental observations: 1) the increasing depth of rivalry at higher cortical areas, as shown in electrophysiological, imaging, and psychophysical experiments; 2) the unimodal probability density of dominance durations, where the mode is less than the mean; 3) the lack of correlation between successive dominance durations; 4) the effect of interocular stimulus differences on dominance duration; and 5) eye suppression, as opposed to feature suppression. The model is potentially applicable to issues of visual processing more general than binocular rivalry.

Animals↗

PubMed2004

Contrast sensitivity of form and motion discrimination during binocular rivalry.

Binocular rivalry, which is induced by presenting the two eyes with incompatible stimuli, results in periods where one eye's stimulus is seen and the other stimulus is suppressed. We measured the depth of suppression in two ways, with very different results. First, two similar forms were briefly presented to one eye: the difference in shapes required to discriminate the forms was substantially greater during suppression than during dominance. Second, the two forms were made sufficiently different in shape to be easily distinguishable at high contrast, and contrast was lowered to find the threshold for discrimination of the forms. Contrast sensitivity did not differ between the suppression and dominance states. These results were replicated with a motion discrimination task: suppression markedly worsened the ability to distinguish increases from decreases in speed but did not elevate the minimum contrast required for the same task. We interpret the results in terms of steep contrast-response functions in visual cortex beyond the primary area.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

A Cartesian coordinate system for human cerebral cortex.

The most commonly used method for specifying the locations of functional areas in the human cerebral cortex is the coordinate system of Talairach and Tournoux (Co-planar Stereotaxic Altas of The Human Brain (1988) Georg Thieme Verlag, Stuttgart). It was designed to locate subcortical nuclei by reference to an axis joining the anterior and posterior commissures. The coordinate system has difficulties, however, when applied to cortical locations: (1) it can be difficult to locate the posterior commissure (PC); (2) the fundamental axis is short, and errors in specifying the axis lead to large errors at the cortical surface; (3) there is no normalisation for brain size. We sought to rectify these problems with a new coordinate system, the Sydney system, in which the fundamental axis runs in the medial sagittal plane from the anterior edge of the corpus callosum to the posterior end of the parieto-occipital sulcus. Normalisation is achieved by dividing all distances by the length of the fundamental axis. Using functionally important points and anatomical landmarks on cadaveric specimens and magnetic resonance images (MRI), three-dimensional coordinates were measured in both the Talairach and Sydney systems. The Sydney system has the following advantages over the Talairach system: (1) the fundamental axis is more than four times longer and is easier to identify; (2) the Sydney system is more precise, in that it reduces the spread of points across the sample; (3) the normalised coordinates allow locations to be compared across individuals, regardless of brain size. We conclude that for the mapping of cortical areas, the Sydney system is potentially an improvement on Talairach's.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Increasing depth of binocular rivalry suppression along two visual pathways.

Binocular rivalry refers to the alternating perception that occurs when the two eyes are presented with incompatible stimuli: one monocular image is seen exclusively for several seconds before disappearing as the other image comes into view. The unseen stimulus is physically present but is not perceived because the sensory signals it elicits are suppressed. The neural site of this binocular rivalry suppression is a source of continuing controversy. We psychophysically tested human subjects, using test probes designed to selectively activate the visual system at a variety of processing stages. The results, which apply to both form and motion judgements, show that the sensitivity loss during suppression increases as the subject's task becomes more sophisticated. We conclude that binocular rivalry suppression is present at a number of stages along two visual cortical pathways, and that suppression deepens as the visual signal progresses along these pathways.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Assessing binocular cooperation with patchwork stimuli.

This study investigated binocular cooperation with patchwork stimuli,which were constructed by cutting a picture into patches, presenting some patches to one eye and presenting the remaining patches to the fellow eye. Reconstruction of the original picture requires subjects to combine information from the two eyes, and therefore tests the quality of their binocular cooperation. The strength of cooperation was measured by presenting closed contours in patchwork form, and asking adult human subjects to discriminate between distorted and undistorted contours. Both normal and strabismic subjects were tested. The strabismic subjects required a distortion amplitude fivefold that of the normal subjects to achieve the same level of discrimination. Further, the binocular performance of the strabismic subjects was largely determined by their performance when using only the non-strabismic eye. These results suggest that patchwork stimuli may be useful in clinical tests for binocular cooperation.

Adult↗