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The role of left-right symmetry in the encodement of spatial orientations.

Three experiments investigated a hypothesis, suggested by studies of the difficulties of discriminating between shapes forming symmetrical pairs, that spatial orientations of thin flat plates (lamellae) may be encoded in a plane, the encodement consisting of two enantiomorphs. The results indicated that participants encoded the spatial orientation of lamellar stimuli in terms of the difference in cogency between their two enantiomorphic elements (Expt 1). The difference in the cogency of the two enantiomorphs is related to the orientation of the plane containing the lamellar stimulus with respect to the participant's fronto-parallel plane (Expt 2). The two possible orientations of a lamella which yield the same difference of cogency, but which differ in spatial orientation (e.g. lamella 'b' set at 30 degrees or set at 150 degrees) are distinguished by the manner in which the two enantiomorphic elements are arranged with respect to their axis of symmetry (Expt 3). The results suggest that the orientation of a lamella may be encoded as a two-dimensional representation and hence that three dimensions may be encoded by two by means of enantiomorphs. Implications of this finding for the encodements of three-dimensional solids, wherein pronounced contours may fulfil the same role as do the edges of lamella, are discussed briefly.

Adult↗

Information limit on the spatial integration of local orientation signals.

Channel-based models of human spatial vision require that the output of spatial filters be pooled across space. This pooling yields global estimates of local feature attributes such as orientation that are useful in situations in which that attribute may be locally variable, as is the case for visual texture. The spatial characteristics of orientation summation are considered in the study. By assessing the effect of orientation variability on observers' ability to estimate the mean orientation of spatially unstructured textures, one can determine both the internal noise on each orientation sample and the number of samples being pooled. By a combination of fixing and covarying the size of textured regions and the number of elements constituting them, one can then assess the effects of the texture's size, density, and numerosity (the number of elements present) on the internal noise and the sampling density. Results indicate that internal noise shows a primary dependence on texture density but that, counterintuitively, subjects rely on a sample size approximately equal to a fixed power of the number of samples present, regardless of their spatial arrangement. Orientation pooling is entirely flexible with respect to the position of input features.

Artifacts↗

Method of unconfounding orientation and direction tunings in neuronal response to moving bars and gratings.

When an oriented bar or grating is drifted across the receptive field of a cortical neuron at various orientations, the tuning function reflects both, and thus confounds the orientation (ORI) and the direction-of-motion (DIR) selectivity of the cell. Since ORI (or DIR), by definition, has a period of 180(or 360) deg/cycle, a popular method for separating these two components, due to Wörgötter and Eysel [Biol. Cybern. 57, 349 (1987)], is to Fourier decompose the neuron's response along the angular direction and then identify the first and the second harmonic with DIR and ORI, respectively (the SDO method). Zhang [Biol. Cybern. 63, 135 (1990)] pointed out that this interpretation is misconceived--all odd harmonics (not just the first harmonic) reflect the DIR component, whereas all even harmonics (including the second harmonic) contain contributions from both DIR and ORI. Here, a simplified procedure is proposed to accomplish the goal of unconfounding ORI and DIR. We first construct the sum of all odd harmonics of the overall tuning curve, denoted ODDSUM, by calculating the difference in the neuronal response to opposite drifting directions. Then we construct ODDSUM+/ODDSUM/ and identify it with DIR (here . denotes the absolute value). Subtracting DIR, that is ODDSUM+ /ODDSUM/, from the overall tuning curve gives ORI. Our method ensures that (i) the reconstructed DIR contains only one, positive peak at the preferred direction and can have power in all harmonics, and (ii) the reconstructed ORI has two peaks separated by 180 degrees and has zero power for all odd harmonics. Using this procedure, we have unconfounded orientation and direction components for a considerable sample of macaque striate cortical cells, and compared the results with those obtained using Wörgötter and Eysel's SDO method. We found that whereas the estimate of the peak angle of ORI remains largely unaffected, Wörgötter and Eysel's method considerably overestimated the relative strength of ORI. To conclude, a simple method is provided for appropriately separating the orientation and directional tuning in a neuron's response that is confounded as a result of the use of drifting oriented stimuli.

Action Potentials↗

Orientation-specific computation in stereoscopic vision.

The left and right eyes receive subtly different images from a visual scene. Binocular disparities of retinal image locations are correlated with variation in the depth of objects in the scene and make stereoscopic depth perception possible. Disparity stereoscopically specifies a stimulus; changing the stimulus in a way that conserves its disparity leaves the stimulus stereoscopically unchanged. Therefore, a person's ability to use stereo to see the depth separating any two objects should depend only on the disparities of the objects, which in turn depend on where the objects are, not what they are. However, I find that the disparity difference between two stimuli by itself predicts neither stereoacuity nor perceived depth. Human stereo vision is shown here to be most sensitive at detecting the relative depth of two gratings when they are parallel. Rotating one grating by as little as 10 degrees lowers sensitivity. The rotation can make a perceptible depth separation invisible, although it changes neither the relative nor absolute disparities of the gratings, only their relative orientations. The effect of relative orientation is not confined to stimuli that, like gratings, vary along one dimension or to stimuli perceived to have a dominant orientation. Rather, it is the relative orientation of the one-dimensional components of stimuli, even broadband stimuli, that matters. This limit on stereoscopic depth perception appears to be intrinsic to the visual system's computation of disparity; by taking place within orientation bands, the computation renders the coding of disparity inseparable from the coding of orientation.

Depth Perception↗

Receptive field properties of the macaque second somatosensory cortex: representation of orientation on different finger pads.

Orientation tuning has been studied extensively in the visual system, but little is known about it in the somatosensory system. Here we investigate tuning in the second somatosensory (SII) region using a motorized stimulator that presented a small oriented bar to the 12 finger pads of digits 2-5 (D2-D5) of the macaque monkey. A subset (23%; n = 218) of the 928 SII region neurons [the same 928 neurons studied by Fitzgerald et al. (2004, 2006)] exhibited tuning, and most of these were tuned on one or two finger pads. All eight 22.5 degrees separated orientations were represented as the preferred orientation of multiple neurons, although not necessarily in equal numbers. A measure of bandwidth indicated that tuning in the SII region is sharp and is similar to the tuning observed in visual cortical areas. In addition, two-dimensional Gaussians that were fit to the tuning curves had very high r2 values, indicating that most tuning curves are both unimodal and symmetrical with respect to their preferred orientation. Most tuned neurons had additional untuned pads, although the responsiveness of these pads tended to be less than the responsiveness of tuned pads. Neurons with multiple tuned pads tended to have similar preferred orientations on their tuned pads, which can be interpreted as evidence for integration of information across fingers or as a form of positional invariance. Finally, comparison of the tuning properties showed that there are small but significant differences between the posterior, central, and anterior fields of the SII region.

Action Potentials↗

Orientation and lever responding in auditory discriminations in squirrel monkeys.

Head orientation during auditory discriminations was studies in squirrel monkeys using a two-lever trial-by-trial procedure. Animals were studied using auditory discriminations based on the position of the sound and on the spectral content differences between a pure tone and a noise. After the percentage of correct responses reached asymptote, head orientation was measured using videotape recordings. Orientation occurred on virtually every trial and was under the control of the position of the sound under all conditions. Lever responding was controlled by the same parameters of the sound under some conditions, and by different parameters in others. Orientation and lever responding were correlated (a level response could be predicted from the direction of orientation) when both responses were under the control of the same parameters of the sound. The two responses were uncorrelated when they were controlled by different parameters of the sound. Orientation and lever responding were not functionally related.

Animals↗

Passive flow through an unstalked intertidal ascidian: orientation and morphology enhance suspension feeding in Pyura stolonifera.

Passive flow is believed to increase the gains and reduce the costs of active suspension feeding. We used a mixture of field and laboratory experiments to evaluate whether the unstalked intertidal ascidian Pyura stolonifera exploits passive flow. We predicted that its orientation to prevailing currents and the arrangement of its siphons would induce passive flow due to dynamic pressure at the inhalant siphon, as well as by the Bernoulli effect or viscous entrainment associated with different fluid velocities at each siphon, or by both mechanisms. The orientation of P. stolonifera at several locations along the Sydney-Illawarra coast (Australia) covering a wide range of wave exposures was nonrandom and revealed that the ascidians were consistently oriented with their inhalant siphons directed into the waves or backwash. Flume experiments using wax models demonstrated that the arrangement of the siphons could induce passive flow and that passive flow was greatest when the inhalant siphon was oriented into the flow. Field experiments using transplanted animals confirmed that such an orientation resulted in ascidians gaining food at greater rates, as measured by fecal production, than when oriented perpendicular to the wave direction. We conclude that P. stolonifera enhances suspension feeding by inducing passive flow and is, therefore, a facultatively active suspension feeder. Furthermore, we argue that it is likely that many other active suspension feeders utilize passive flow and, therefore, measurements of their clearance rates should be made under appropriate conditions of flow to gain ecologically relevant results.

Analysis of Variance↗

Stimulus length and orientation variables interact in peripheral motion perception.

To determine the effects of stimulus length and orientation on the perception of motion, 5 experienced subjects responded with a simple reaction to accelerating lines in peripheral vision while fixating on a reference cross at the center of a cathode-ray tube. Three experimental variables were involved: (a) line length, (b) direction of motion, and (c) orientation of the line with respect to the motion. Simple reaction time (RT) was significantly longer for vertical than for horizontal motion and for lines oriented in-line with the direction of motion than for lines oriented perpendicular to the direction of motion. A significant interaction was found between line length and orientation. The results show that the generalization that RT is shorter for small objects than for large objects must be modified in terms of the orientation of the object.

Adult↗

Effect of orientation on visual and vibrotactile letter identification.

The effect of stimulus orientation of letters presented either visually or vibrotactually was examined to obtain basic information on sensory substitution using the tactile sense. The reaction time (RT) to identify the letters F and R presented in normal or mirror-image form at four orientations each was measured. In addition, conditions of 0 degree and 270 degrees of head rotation from vertical and arm rotation from the midline axis were employed. Data from 5 trained subjects showed that vibrotactile RTs were always longer than visual RTs. Stimulus rotation away from normal orientation increased visual RTs significantly but not vibrotactile RTs. Visual orientation effect then seemed to be determined by the body-coordinate system but not the vibrotactile orientation. Although further studies are warranted, from the results of this experiment, any convenient and constant stimulus orientation could be used with a wearable vibrotactile display system to exploit passive touch.

Attention↗

Influence of gravity on the orientation of vestibular induced quick phases.

In rabbits and cats the orientation of the quick phases (QPs) of the vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) was studied varying the head position in space. At different head tilt positions, QPs induced by step vestibular stimulation disaligned with respect to the stimulus toward the orientation of the earth's horizontal axis. The rabbits' QPs were horizontal during yaw stimulation and remained horizontal in a range of head pitch of +/- 90 degrees (reorientation gain = 1). Therefore, the slow compensatory responses (CSPs) progressively disaligned compared with the QPs. QPs induced by roll stimulation also showed horizontal orientation, although these were rare in the upright position and occurred more frequently when the head was pitched. In cats only the yaw-induced QPs were coplanar with the stimulus, while QPs induced by pitching were mostly oblique. It followed that in either yawing or pitching, the QPs had their end point scattered within a horizontally elongated area of the visual field. When tilting cats in the frontal plane, the orientation of QP trajectories changed with respect to the stimulus so that the end point distribution tended to remain aligned toward the horizontal instead of being fixed in the orbit. The reorientation gain decreased from 1 to 0.5 by increasing the head tilt. On the basis of difference regarding eye implantation and motility it was suggested that the effect of gravity on the orientation of QPs could be aimed at maintaining the interocular axis aligned with the horizon in the rabbit and at orientating the visual scanning system in the horizontal plane in the cat.

Animals↗

Reliability of self report among non-oriented head-injured adults.

Two groups of head injury clients (oriented and non-oriented) and a group of non-disabled participants were compared on response consistency to a MMPI test. Over three testing sessions it was found that the non-oriented head injury group had the most inconsistent responses followed by the oriented head injury group and the control group. Though six of the 21 MMPI profiles from the non-oriented clients were identified as invalid, MMPI validity scales did not effectively detect unreliable responders. Results suggest that caution is needed when using self-report personal assessments with non-oriented head injury clients.

Adult↗

Reality orientation training in an amnesic: a controlled single-case study (n = 572 days).

'Reality orientation training' (ROT) is a well-established therapy used with the elderly, especially those with dementia. It aims to improve orientation and reduce negative behaviours, e.g. confusion. ROT has been recommended for non-demented patients with acquired neurological impairment. However, this suggestion has not been investigated further in controlled trials. This paper describes an informal 24 h ROT programme with an amnesic subject (H.J.). It combined single-case experimental designs derived from behaviour therapy. Target behaviours were items of temporal orientation--current time/time of day, year, season, month and day of week. Orientation regarding the current date was not trained, and thus served as control variable for non-specific effects (e.g. spontaneous recovery). In order to improve oriented behaviour in different relevant situations outside the clinic, we chose 24 h ROT instead of formal therapeutic sessions. The patients' spouse offered 24 h ROT at home 7 days a week. This consisted of reminding the patient of orientation information, e.g. the current day of the week in different situations. Furthermore, negative behaviours such as irrelevant questions were ignored. The patients' spouse was trained and supervised to carry out this task in 27 sessions each lasting 10 min. For 14 weeks supervision was provided twice a week in the clinic (i.e. 2 x 10 min). Afterwards the spouse continued to apply ROT at home without further supervision in two follow-up periods. As expected, learning was slow but reliable. Generalization of improvement to another setting was shown (home vs clinic). Stable therapeutic gains over a long follow-up period could be demonstrated.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Activities of Daily Living↗

The role of contextual cues in the haptic perception of orientations and the oblique effect.

Blindfolded right-handed participants were asked to position, with the right hand, a frontoparallel rod to one of three orientations: vertical (0 degrees) and left 45 degrees and right 45 degrees obliques. Simultaneously, three different backgrounds were explored with the left hand: smooth, congruent stripes (parallel to the orientation to be produced), or incongruent stripes (tilted relative to the orientation to be produced). The analysis of variable errors showed that the oblique effect (higher precision for the vertical orientation than for the oblique orientations) was weakened in the presence of contextual cues, because of an improvement in oblique precision. Moreover, the analysis of constant errors revealed that the perception of orientations erred in the direction of the stripes, similar to the effect that has been found with vision, where visual contextual cues (tilted frame or lines) divert the perception of the vertical. These results are discussed in relation to a patterncentric frame of reference hypothesis or as a congruency effect.

Adult↗

Orientation-invariant transfer of training in the identification of rotated natural objects.

The effects of stimulus orientation on naming were examined in two experiments in which subjects identified line drawings of natural objects following practice with the objects at the same or different orientations. Half the rotated objects were viewed in the orientation that matched the earlier presentations, and half were viewed at an orientation that mismatched the earlier presentations. Systematic effects of orientation on naming time were found during the early presentations. These effects were reduced during later presentations, and the size of this reduction did not depend on the orientation in which the object had been seen originally. The results are consistent with a dual-systems model of object identification in which initially large effects of disorientation are the result of a normalization process such as mental rotation, and in which attenuation of the effects is due to a shift from the normalization system to a feature/part-based system.

Adult↗

The Ponzo illusion and the perception of orientation.

A new theory, called the tilt constancy theory, claims that the Ponzo illusion is caused by the misperception of orientation induced by local visual cues. The theory relates the Ponzo illusion-along with the Zöllner, Poggendorff, Wündt-Hering, and cafe wall illusions-to the mechanisms that enable us to perceive stable orientations despite changes in retinal orientation or body orientation. In Experiment 1, the magnitude of the misperception of orientation was compared with the magnitude of the Ponzo illusion. In Experiment 2, predictions of the tilt constancy theory were compared with accounts based on (1) low spatial frequencies in the image, (2) memory comparisons (pool-and-store model), and (3) relative sizejudgments. In Experiment 3, predictions of the tilt constancy theory were tested against predictions of the assimilation theory of Pressey and his colleagues. In the final experiment, the orientation account was compared with theories based on linear perspective and inappropriate size constancy. The results support the tilt constancy theory.

Adult↗

Updating an object's orientation and location during nonvisual navigation: a comparison between two processing modes.

In the present study, we compared the effects of two processing modes on the updating of the location and orientation of a previously viewed object in space during a guided walk without vision. In Experiment 1, in order to measure the error for initial perception of object's orientation, 12 subjects rotated a miniature model until it matched the memorized orientation of its counterpart object in space. In Experiment 2, they attempted either to keep track of the object continuously (in the object-centered [OC] task) or to estimate the object's perspective only at the terminal vantage point given the trajectory they walked (in the trajectory-centered [TC] task). Subjects indicated the location of the object by facing it, and then rotated the model in order to indicate its orientation from the new vantage point. Results showed that, with respect to the TC mode, the OC mode induced a slow-down of the subjects' self-paced locomotion velocity for both linear and angular movements, and a decrease of the latencies as well as smaller absolute errors for the orientation-of-the-object response. Mean signed errors on object's orientation were equivalent for both processing modes, suggesting that the latter induced different allocations of processing resources on a common representation of space updated by "path integration."

Adult↗

[Forgetting properties of orientation information of natural objects].

The purpose of this research was to compare the forgetting property of object orientation information and identity information. They were measured by two types of recognition tests about both of information of natural objects presented in Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP). Participants were one hundred and twenty undergraduates who were tested with two recognition tests. The results indicated; (1) Short-term memory for orientation information was inferior to that for identity information; (2) Estimated decay rate of orientation information was about twice as fast as that of identity information; (3)Orientation information was forgotten in about two seconds regardless of the category level of presented objects. Finally, the validity of recognition tests of object orientation and the independence of identity information and orientation information are discussed.

Adult↗

Structured long-range connections can provide a scaffold for orientation maps.

In the visual cortex of the cat and ferret, it is established that maturation of orientation selectivity is shaped by experience-dependent plasticity. However, recent experiments indicate that orientation maps are remarkably stable and experience-independent. We present a model to account for these seemingly paradoxical results. In this model, a scaffold consisting of non-isotropic lateral connections is laid down in horizontal circuitry before visual experience. These lateral connections provide an experience-independent framework for the developing orientation maps by inducing a broad orientation tuning bias in the model neurons. Experience-dependent plasticity of the thalamocortical connections sharpens the tuning while the preferred orientation of the neurons remains unchanged. This model is verified by computer simulations in which the scaffolds are generated both artificially and inferred from experimental optical imaging data. The plasticity is modeled by the BCM synaptic plasticity rule, and the input environment consists of natural images. We use this model to provide a possible explanation of the recent observation in which two eyes without common visual experience develop similar orientation maps. Finally, we propose an experiment involving the disruption of lateral connections to distinguish this model from models proposed by others.

Animals↗