scholarly journals Faster is better: Visual responses to motion are stronger for higher refresh rates

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mina A.Khoei ◽  
Francesco Galluppi ◽  
Quentin Sabatier ◽  
Pierre Pouget ◽  
Benoit R Cottereau ◽  
...  

Although neural responses with a millisecond precision were reported in the retina, lateral geniculate nucleus and visual cortex of multiple species, the presence and role of such a fine temporal structure is still debated at the cortical level and the general belief remains that early visual system encodes information at slower timescales. In this study, we used a new stimulation platform to generate visual stimuli that were very precisely encoded in time and we characterized in human subjects the EEG responses to moving patterns that shared the same global motion but differed in their fine scale spatio-temporal properties. In two experiments, we manipulated the information within temporal windows that corresponded to the frame duration in conventional (1/60 = 16.7ms, experience 1) and more recent (1/120 = 8.3ms, experience 2) visual displays. Our results demonstrate that EEG responses to temporally dense and coherent trajectories are significantly stronger than those to control conditions without these properties. They extend previous results from our group that showed that accurate temporal information (<10ms) significantly improve perceptual judgments on spatial discrimination, digit recognition and sensitivity for speed [Kime et al., 2016]. Altogether, our results suggest that instead of low-pass filtering the temporal information it receives from its thalamic afferents, the visual cortex may actually exploit its richness to improve visual perception.

Author(s):  
R. Oz ◽  
H. Edelman-Klapper ◽  
S. Nivinsky-Margalit ◽  
H. Slovin

AbstractIntra cortical microstimulation (ICMS) in the primary visual cortex (V1) can generate the visual perception of phosphenes and evoke saccades directed to the stimulated location in the retinotopic map. Although ICMS is widely used, little is known about the evoked spatio-temporal patterns of neural activity and their relation to neural responses evoked by visual stimuli or saccade generation. To investigate this, we combined ICMS with Voltage Sensitive Dye Imaging in V1 of behaving monkeys and measured neural activity at high spatial (meso-scale) and temporal resolution. Small visual stimuli and ICMS evoked population activity spreading over few mm that propagated to extrastriate areas. The population responses evoked by ICMS showed faster dynamics and different spatial propagation patterns. Neural activity was higher in trials w/saccades compared with trials w/o saccades. In conclusion, our results uncover the spatio-temporal patterns evoked by ICMS and their relation to visual processing and saccade generation.


2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (02) ◽  
pp. 1461016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandra Gatti ◽  
Lucia Caspani ◽  
Tommaso Corti ◽  
Enrico Brambilla ◽  
Ottavia Jedrkiewicz

We draw an intuitive picture of the spatio–temporal properties of the entangled state of twin photons, where they are described as classical wave-packets. This picture predicts a precise relation between their temporal and transverse spatial separations at the crystal output. The space-time coupling described by classical arguments turns out to determine in a precise way the spatio–temporal structure of the quantum entanglement, analyzed by means of the biphotonic correlation and of the Schmidt dimensionality of the entanglement.


1986 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 755-757
Author(s):  
G. Ya. Smolkov

As is known from eclipse observations, the microwave emission of an active region consists of three main components: floccular, inter-spot (halo) and spot components which differ in intensity, the degree of polarization, and in structure and sizes /1/. A possibility of identifying the finer spatial and temporal structure in the active region (AR) emission has existed since RATAN, the VLA and WSRT became operational. The construction of the SSRT permitted the initiation of a systematic study of spatio-temporal properties of the development of active regions /2, 3/.The majority of the properties in the AR development are reflected in detail and rapidly in the microwave emission characteristics /4, 6/.


1996 ◽  
Vol 76 (5) ◽  
pp. 3425-3441 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Carandini ◽  
F. Mechler ◽  
C. S. Leonard ◽  
J. A. Movshon

1. To study the encoding of input currents into output spike trains by regular-spiking cells, we recorded intracellularly from slices of the guinea pig visual cortex while injecting step, sinusoidal, and broadband noise currents. 2. When measured with sinusoidal currents, the frequency tuning of the spike responses was markedly band-pass. The preferred frequency was between 8 and 30 Hz, and grew with stimulus amplitude and mean intensity. 3. Stimulation with broadband noise currents dramatically enhanced the gain of the spike responses at low and high frequencies, yielding an essentially flat frequency tuning between 0.1 and 130 Hz. 4. The averaged spike responses to sinusoidal currents exhibited two nonlinearities: rectification and spike synchronization. By contrast, no nonlinearity was evident in the averaged responses to broadband noise stimuli. 5. These properties of the spike responses were not present in the membrane potential responses. The latter were roughly linear, and their frequency tuning was low-pass and well fit by a single-compartment passive model of the cell membrane composed of a resistance and a capacitance in parallel (RC circuit). 6. To account for the spike responses, we used a “sandwich model” consisting of a low-pass linear filter (the RC circuit), a rectification nonlinearity, and a high-pass linear filter. The model is described by six parameters and predicts analog firing rates rather than discrete spikes. It provided satisfactory fits to the firing rate responses to steps, sinusoids, and broadband noise currents. 7. The properties of spike encoding are consistent with temporal nonlinearities of the visual responses in V1, such as the dependence of response frequency tuning and latency on stimulus contrast and bandwidth. We speculate that one of the roles of the high-frequency membrane potential fluctuations observed in vivo could be to amplify and linearize the responses to lower, stimulus-related frequencies.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 20180021 ◽  
Author(s):  
James B. Isbister ◽  
Akihiro Eguchi ◽  
Nasir Ahmad ◽  
Juan M. Galeazzi ◽  
Mark J. Buckley ◽  
...  

We discuss a recently proposed approach to solve the classic feature-binding problem in primate vision that uses neural dynamics known to be present within the visual cortex. Broadly, the feature-binding problem in the visual context concerns not only how a hierarchy of features such as edges and objects within a scene are represented, but also the hierarchical relationships between these features at every spatial scale across the visual field. This is necessary for the visual brain to be able to make sense of its visuospatial world. Solving this problem is an important step towards the development of artificial general intelligence. In neural network simulation studies, it has been found that neurons encoding the binding relations between visual features, known as binding neurons, emerge during visual training when key properties of the visual cortex are incorporated into the models. These biological network properties include (i) bottom-up, lateral and top-down synaptic connections, (ii) spiking neuronal dynamics, (iii) spike timing-dependent plasticity, and (iv) a random distribution of axonal transmission delays (of the order of several milliseconds) in the propagation of spikes between neurons. After training the network on a set of visual stimuli, modelling studies have reported observing the gradual emergence of polychronization through successive layers of the network, in which subpopulations of neurons have learned to emit their spikes in regularly repeating spatio-temporal patterns in response to specific visual stimuli. Such a subpopulation of neurons is known as a polychronous neuronal group (PNG). Some neurons embedded within these PNGs receive convergent inputs from neurons representing lower- and higher-level visual features, and thus appear to encode the hierarchical binding relationship between features. Neural activity with this kind of spatio-temporal structure robustly emerges in the higher network layers even when neurons in the input layer represent visual stimuli with spike timings that are randomized according to a Poisson distribution. The resulting hierarchical representation of visual scenes in such models, including the representation of hierarchical binding relations between lower- and higher-level visual features, is consistent with the hierarchical phenomenology or subjective experience of primate vision and is distinct from approaches interested in segmenting a visual scene into a finite set of objects.


Author(s):  
Haigang Liu ◽  
David B. Hitchcock ◽  
S. Zahra Samadi

AbstractTo investigate the relationship between flood gage height and precipitation in South Carolina from 2012 to 2016, we built a conditional autoregressive (CAR) model using a Bayesian hierarchical framework. This approach allows the modelling of the main spatio-temporal properties of water height dynamics over multiple locations, accounting for the effect of river network, geomorphology, and forcing rainfall. In this respect, a proximity matrix based on watershed information was used to capture the spatial structure of gage height measurements in and around South Carolina. The temporal structure was handled by a first-order autoregressive term in the model. Several covariates, including the elevation of the sites and effects of seasonality, were examined, along with daily rainfall amount. A non-normal error structure was used to account for the heavy-tailed distribution of maximum gage heights. The proposed model captured some key features of the flood process such as seasonality and a stronger association between precipitation and flooding during summer season. The model is able to forecast short term flood gage height which is crucial for informed emergency decision. As a byproduct, we also developed a Python library to retrieve and handle environmental data provided by some main agencies in the United States. This library can be of general usefulness for studies requiring rainfall, flow, and geomorphological information over specific areas of the conterminous US.


Author(s):  
Tengfei Li ◽  
Jing Liu ◽  
Haiying Sun ◽  
Xiang Chen ◽  
Lipeng Zhang ◽  
...  

AbstractIn the past few years, significant progress has been made on spatio-temporal cyber-physical systems in achieving spatio-temporal properties on several long-standing tasks. With the broader specification of spatio-temporal properties on various applications, the concerns over their spatio-temporal logics have been raised in public, especially after the widely reported safety-critical systems involving self-driving cars, intelligent transportation system, image processing. In this paper, we present a spatio-temporal specification language, STSL PC, by combining Signal Temporal Logic (STL) with a spatial logic S4 u, to characterize spatio-temporal dynamic behaviors of cyber-physical systems. This language is highly expressive: it allows the description of quantitative signals, by expressing spatio-temporal traces over real valued signals in dense time, and Boolean signals, by constraining values of spatial objects across threshold predicates. STSL PC combines the power of temporal modalities and spatial operators, and enjoys important properties such as finite model property. We provide a Hilbert-style axiomatization for the proposed STSL PC and prove the soundness and completeness by the spatio-temporal extension of maximal consistent set and canonical model. Further, we demonstrate the decidability of STSL PC and analyze the complexity of STSL PC. Besides, we generalize STSL to the evolution of spatial objects over time, called STSL OC, and provide the proof of its axiomatization system and decidability.


Perception ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 249-265
Author(s):  
A. Ankeeta ◽  
S. Senthil Kumaran ◽  
Rohit Saxena ◽  
Sada N. Dwivedi ◽  
Naranamangalam R. Jagannathan

Involvement of visual cortex varies during tactile perception tasks in early blind (EB) and late blind (LB) human subjects. This study explored differences in sensory motor networks associated with tactile task in EB and LB subjects and between children and adolescents. A total of 40 EB subjects, 40 LB subjects, and 30 sighted controls were recruited in two subgroups: children (6–12 years) and adolescents (13–19 years). Data were acquired using a 3T MR scanner. Analyses of blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD), functional connectivity (FC), correlation, and post hoc test for multiple comparisons were carried out. Difference in BOLD activity was observed in EB and LB groups in visual cortex during tactile perception, with increased FC of visual with dorsal attention and sensory motor networks in EB. EB adolescents exhibited increased connectivity with default mode and salience networks when compared with LB. Functional results correlated with duration of training, suggestive of better performance in EB. Alteration in sensory and visual networks in EB and LB correlated with duration of tactile training. Age of onset of blindness has an effect in cross-modal reorganization of visual cortex in EB and multimodal in LB in children and adolescents.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 166
Author(s):  
Hartmut Müller ◽  
Marije Louwsma

The Covid-19 pandemic put a heavy burden on member states in the European Union. To govern the pandemic, having access to reliable geo-information is key for monitoring the spatial distribution of the outbreak over time. This study aims to analyze the role of spatio-temporal information in governing the pandemic in the European Union and its member states. The European Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) system and selected national dashboards from member states were assessed to analyze which spatio-temporal information was used, how the information was visualized and whether this changed over the course of the pandemic. Initially, member states focused on their own jurisdiction by creating national dashboards to monitor the pandemic. Information between member states was not aligned. Producing reliable data and timeliness reporting was problematic, just like selecting indictors to monitor the spatial distribution and intensity of the outbreak. Over the course of the pandemic, with more knowledge about the virus and its characteristics, interventions of member states to govern the outbreak were better aligned at the European level. However, further integration and alignment of public health data, statistical data and spatio-temporal data could provide even better information for governments and actors involved in managing the outbreak, both at national and supra-national level. The Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe (INSPIRE) initiative and the NUTS system provide a framework to guide future integration and extension of existing systems.


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