ICCNS 2010

Jasmin Leveille, Stephen Grossberg, and Massimiliano Versace

Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems, and Center of Excellence for Learning in Education, Science, and Technology, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215

How do spatially disjoint and ambiguous local motion signals in multiple directions generate coherent and unambiguous representations of object motion? Various motion percepts, starting with those of Duncker and Johansson, obey a rule of vector decomposition, where global motion appears to be subtracted from the true motion path of localized stimulus components, so that objects and their parts are seen as moving relative to a common reference frame. A neural model predicts how vector decomposition results from multiple-scale and multiple-depth interactions within and between the form and motion processing streams in V1-V2 and V1-MST, which include form grouping, form-to-motion capture, figure-ground separation, and object motion capture mechanisms. In particular, these mechanisms solve the aperture problem, group spatially disjoint moving objects via illusory contours, capture object motion direction signals on real and illusory contours, and use inter-depth directional inhibition to cause a vector decomposition whereby the motion directions of a moving frame at a nearer depth suppress these directions at a farther depth and thereby cause a peak shift in the perceived directions of object parts moving with respect to the frame.

Supported in part by CELEST, an NSF Science of Learning Center (SBE-0354378) and the SyNAPSE program of DARPA (HR001109-03-0001, HR001-09-C-0001).