The Cognitive Neuroscience of Perception

Onur Gntrkn

Rules of Perception
At any point in time, countless stimuli are detected by our sensory
systems and compete for our attention. If our attentional system
would not be limited, we would not need a process of stimulus
selection. In this course we will present some of the rules that
govern our selection.
This process of selection is composed of two major systems:
The first is the bottom-up system. It is stimulus-driven and thus
relies on the properties of the input (brightness, salience, size,
movement etc.). We attend to them whether we want to or not.
Bottom-up attention depends on the properties of the ascending
sensory pathways.
The second is a top-down system. It is goal-driven and relies on
past learning and the current motivation. We know what we are
looking for. Top-down attention is mostly mediated by prefrontal
and
basal-ganglia
systems.
Desimone,
R. and Duncan,
J., Neural mechanisms of selective visual attention, Annual Rev.
Neurosci. 1995. 18:193-222.

competitive
selection

Retinal eccentricity

Auto

Arm

Auto

Ampel

Auto

Amsel

Auto

Aster

Auto

Alster

Auto

Auster

rods (luminace sensitive)

cones (color sensitive)

rods

distribution of rods across retina

cones

Take home message: Our visual resolution dramatically drops with retinal
eccentricity: we only see a tiny fragment of our vision in high resolution.

distribution of cones across retina

Take home message: Since cones are rare in the periphery, our peripheral
vision is to some extent color-weak.

competitive
selection

Ultrashort memory
Retinal eccentricity

How we make saccades

Ultrashort-Term Memory (or Sensory Memory)

X
50 ms

1 sec.

1 sec.

Sperling G., 1960. The information available in brief visual

presentations. Psychol. Monogr., 74 ( 1 1 , Whole No. 498)

The shorter the delay, the higher the probability that we report the full display.
Take home message: We have an ultrashort memory that vanishes after a
few hundred milliseconds. Probably this ultrashort memory (sometimes also
called sensory memory) glues saccadic images into a coherent and large
picture. We are deceived to think that this large picture (which is mostly
constituted by our sensory memory) is actually what we see.

1 sec.

Take home message: Ultrashort

memory seems to work like a blackboard:
symbols overlying other symbols erase
the previous ones. You can write and
erase on this blackboard.

competitive
selection

A wiring diagram for stimulus selection

Ultrashort memory
Retinal eccentricity

How visual attention works

tectum opticum
(superior colliculus)

Knudsen, E. I., Control from below: the role of a midbrain network in

spatial attention, Eur J Neurosci. 2011, 33: 1961-1972.

Ipc = n. isthmi pars parvocellularis

Imc = n. isthmi pars magnocellularis

Imc

Ipc

Tectum opticum

Visual input from a certain point in space

All object attributes within this point in space are highlighted (and possibly bound)

Imc

Ipc

Tectum opticum

Visual input from a certain point in space

A winner-take-all competition for visual attention

Tectum

We record from this

neuron

cellular activity

visual field

time

Tectum

We record from this

neuron

cellular activity

visual field

time

How visual attention works

Take home message:

By creating a winner-take-all system, only few (may be
even only one) visual object is processed in the visual
system. This objects then captures all of our attention. This
selection is done bottom up (by the relative saliency of the
stimuli), or by top down projection (by the forebrain that is
able to modulate the tectal dynamical field and thereby the
winner-take-all connectivity).
All this is done by tiny midbrain structures. So, dont be
corticocentric.

competitive
selection

Synaptic weights of ascending streams

A wiring diagram for stimulus selection
Ultrashort memory
Retinal eccentricity

Synaptic weights of ascending streams

(courtesy of Christian Beste)

Instruction: Look for the luminance

change!
Error rate (%)

200 ms
50 ms
ORIentation

LO-Unilateral

LO-Bilateral
200 ms

LUMinance

time

Beste, C., Wascher, E., Gntrkn, O. and Dinse, H. R., Feature specific Hebbian learning
biases attentional selection, Current Biol., 2011, 21: 876-882

 Induction of neuronal plasticity by passive, sensory

stimulation

Baseline

512 Trials
Stimulation

200 ms

LUMinance

ORIentation

LO-Unilateral

LO-Bilateral

time

200 ms

50 ms

Post 1
90 min
Post 2
24 h
Post 3
10 T

Right side (stimuliated)

Left side
+
+
+

High and low frequency training results in an increase or a

decrease of perceptual detectability.

The difference is due to a high frequency (LTP-like) or low-frequency

exposure (LTD-like) to the relevant feature. Thus, synaptic strengthening or
weakening of bottom-up pathways drives our perception.

1 Hz

5 sec
20 Hz

5 sec

etc.

LTP-like

etc.

40 Min.

40 Min.

LTD-like

Take home message: Competitive mechanisms of sensory

selection can be tuned in a specific way and for lengthy periods
of time by synaptic strengthening (LTP-like) or weakening (LTDlike). Thus, we can train our perceptional system for ceratin

competitive
selection

Feature selection

Synaptic weights of ascending streams

A wiring diagram for stimulus selection
Ultrashort memory
Retinal eccentricity

Find the long white vertical bar

Take home message: At some point between input and response,

objects in the visual input compete for representation, analysis, or
find the non-inverted letter
find the inverted letter
control. The competition is biased, however, towards information that
is currently relevant for behavior. Attended stimuli make demands on
processing capacity, while unattended ones often do not.

Treisman AM. Gormican S. 1988. Feature analysis in early vision: evidence from search
asymmetries. Psychol. Rev. 95 : 15-48

Focus attention on sought images

competitive
selection

Feature selection

Synaptic weights of ascending streams

A wiring diagram for stimulus selection
Ultrashort memory
Retinal eccentricity

Prefrontal Cortex

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2
Prefrontal Cortex

Short term memory consists of two neuronal entities:

1) An active group of neurons that represent the stimulus. This group is
mostly located in sensory associative cortical areas. On its own, this
group would disband after a while.
2) A group of prefrontal neurons that keeps the visual associative neurons
in the ventral temporal cortex active as a group.
34

What do we observe in prefrontal cortex during short term memory ?

Delay period

Prefrontal neurons are activated when the relevant stimulus

disappears. These neurons are possibly the cellular correlate of
35
short term memory.

Remember this!!

Forget it!!

Rose J, Colombo M., Neural correlates of executive control in the avian brain. PLoS
Biol. 2005 (6):e190
36

A cortical landscape of thoughts

Durstewitz, D., Kelc, M. and Gntrkn, O., A neurocomputational theory of the dopaminergic
modulation of working memory functions, J. Neurosci., 1999, 19, 2807-2822.
37

Summary
Our visual resolution dramatically drops with retinal eccentricity:
we only see a tiny fragment of our vision in high resolution and we
see it color-weak.
We have an ultrashort memory that glues these saccadic images
into a coherent and large picture.
Stimuli compete at brainstem level by a winner-take-all system,
such that only few objects are processed in the ascending sensory
systems. These few objects capture all of our attention. This
selection is done both by bottom up (by the relative saliency of the
stimuli), and/or by top down projections.
Competitive mechanisms of sensory selection can be tuned in a
specific way and for lengthy periods of time by synaptic
strengthening (LTP-like) or weakening (LTD-like).
At some point between input and response, objects in the visual
input compete for representation, analysis, or control. The
competition is biased, however, towards information that is
currently relevant for behavior. Attended stimuli make demands
on
38
processing capacity, while unattended ones often do not.