Texture-like representation of objects in human visual cortex

The human visual ability to recognize objects and scenes is widely thought to rely on representations in category-selective regions of visual cortex. These representations could support object vision by specifically representing objects, or, more simply, by representing complex visual features regardless of the particular spatial arrangement needed to constitute real world objects. That is, by representing visual textures. To discriminate between these hypotheses, we leveraged an image synthesis approach that, unlike previous methods, provides independent control over the complexity and spatial arrangement of visual features. We found that human observers could easily detect a natural object among synthetic images with similar complex features that were spatially scrambled. However, observer models built from BOLD responses from category-selective regions, as well as a model of macaque inferotemporal cortex and Imagenet-trained deep convolutional neural networks, were all unable to identify the real object. This inability was not due to a lack of signal-to-noise, as all of these observer models could predict human performance in image categorization tasks. How then might these texture-like representations in category-selective regions support object perception? An image-specific readout from category-selective cortex yielded a representation that was more selective for natural feature arrangement, showing that the information necessary for object discrimination is available. Thus, our results suggest that the role of human category-selective visual cortex is not to explicitly encode objects but rather to provide a basis set of texture-like features that can be infinitely reconfigured to flexibly learn and identify new object categories.

The Relationship Between Shape Perception Accuracy and Drawing Ability.

Accurate shape perception is critical for object perception, identification, manipulation, and recreation. Humans are capable of making judgements of both objective (physical) and projective (retinal) shape. Objective judgements benefit from a global approach by incorporating context to overcome the effects of viewing angle on an object’s shape, whereas projective judgements benefit from a local approach to filter out contextual information. Realistic drawing skill requires projective judgements of 3D targets to accurately depict 3D shape on a 2D surface, thus benefiting from a local approach. The current study used a shape perception task that comprehensively tests the effects of context on shape perception, in conjunction with a drawing task and several measures of local processing bias, to show that the perceptual basis of drawing skill in neurotypical adults is not due to a local processing bias but to perceptual flexibility, the ability to process local or global information as needed.

Measuring Emotional Awareness in Patients With Schizophrenia and Schizoaffective Disorders

The ability to mentalize (i.e., to form representations of mental states and processes of oneself and others) is often impaired in people with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Emotional awareness (EA) represents one aspect of affective mentalizing and can be assessed with the Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (LEAS), but findings regarding individuals with schizophrenia spectrum disorders are inconsistent. The present study aimed at examining the usability and convergent validity of the LEAS in a sample of N = 130 stabilized outpatients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorders. An adequacy rating was added to the conventional LEAS rating to account for distortions of content due to, for example, delusional thinking. Scores of the patient group were compared with those of a matched healthy control sample. Correlation with symptom clusters, a self-report measure of EA, a measure of synthetic metacognition (MAS-A-G), and an expert rating capturing EA from the psychodynamic perspective of psychic structure (OPD-LSIA) were examined. Regarding self-related emotional awareness, patients did not score lower than controls neither in terms of conventional LEAS nor in terms of adequacy. Regarding other-related emotional awareness, however, patients showed a reduced level of adequacy compared to controls whereas no such difference was found for conventional LEAS scores. Higher conventional LEAS scores were associated with fewer negative symptoms, and higher structural integration of self-perceptions measured by the OPD-LSIA. Higher adequacy of responses correlated with fewer symptoms of disorganization as well as excitement, higher scores of self-reflection on the MAS-A-G as well as self- and object-perception and internal and external communication as measured by the subscales of the OPD-LSIA. Findings suggest that the LEAS might not be sensitive enough to detect differences between mildly symptomatic patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorders and healthy controls. However, LEAS ratings are still suitable to track intraindividual changes in EA over time. Observing the adequacy of patients’ responses when using the LEAS may be a promising way to increase diagnostical utility and to identify patterns of formal and content-related alterations of mentalizing in this patient group. Methodological indications for future studies are discussed.

THE RETROSPECTIVE OF THE PHONOSEMANTISM FORMATION AND PHONOSEMANTIC REALITIES IN ENGLISH

The scientific search for phonosemantic realities, carried out in modern promising areas of linguistic research, contributes to the determination of language cognitive capabilities. In the study of language, linguists actively use new principles, which require integration from different sciences to understand language carrier and diverse aspects of the human thinking process, to extensively analyse a wide range of language functions, and to profoundly explain linguistic phenomena. Phonosemantics is now a certain linguistic branch of psycholinguistics, which has gone through several stages of its formation. In practice, its foundation and principles have become the cornerstone of linguistic reasoned searches for the connection between sound and meaning in a multi-genre discourse. There are two approaches to the study of phonosemantism. Researchers' experiments confirm the existence of primary or elementary phonosemantism, showing the dependence of symbolic meaning on the acoustic-articulatory characteristics of sound. Secondary sound-symbolism arises as a result of the speaker's desire to reveal the correlation between the sonority of a word, develops in accordance with the phonetic laws of a particular language and its meaning. Both points of view need to be analyzed only in conjunction, since secondary, or contextually, phonosymbolism is possible due to the existence of the so-called primary, or elementary phonosymbolism. This phenomenon is due to the ability of the human brain to establish an associative relationship between sound and meaning, between objectivity and polymodality of human perception. Experiments have shown that the subject image is polymodal. The polymodal nature of object perception, in turn, presupposes the emergence of auditory images based on the action of only visual stimuli, and vice versa: visual images are born on the basis of auditory stimuli. The results of this study are well-argued evidence of the constancy of the associative meanings of the phonemes of the modern English language.

Knowledge-driven perceptual organization reshapes information sampling via eye movements

Humans constantly move their eyes to explore the environment and obtain information. Competing theories of gaze guidance consider the factors driving eye movements within a dichotomy between low-level visual features and high-level object representations. However, recent developments in object perception indicate a complex and intricate relationship between features and objects. Specifically, image-independent object-knowledge can generate objecthood by dynamically reconfiguring how feature space is carved up by the visual system. Here, we adopt this emerging perspective of object perception, moving away from the simplifying dichotomy between features and objects in explanations of gaze guidance. We recorded eye movements in response to stimuli that appear as meaningless patches on initial viewing but are experienced as coherent objects once relevant object-knowledge has been acquired. We demonstrate that gaze guidance differs substantially depending on whether observers experienced the same stimuli as meaningless patches or organised them into object representations. In particular, fixations on identical images became object-centred, less dispersed, and more consistent across observers once exposed to relevant prior object-knowledge. Observers' gaze behaviour also indicated a shift from exploratory information-sampling to a strategy of extracting information mainly from selected, object-related image areas. These effects were evident from the first fixations on the image. Importantly, however, eye-movements were not fully determined by object representations but were best explained by a simple model that integrates image-computable features and high-level, knowledge-dependent object representations. Overall, the results show how information sampling via eye-movements in humans is guided by a dynamic interaction between image-computable features and knowledge-driven perceptual organisation.

The influence of objecthood on the representation of natural images in the visual cortex

Neurons in early visual cortex are not only sensitive to the image elements in their receptive field but also to the context determining whether the elements are part of an object or background. We here assessed the effect of objecthood in natural images on neuronal activity in early visual cortex, with fMRI in humans and electrophysiology in monkeys. We report that boundaries and interiors of objects elicit more activity than the background. Boundary effects occur remarkably early, implying that visual cortical neurons are tuned to features characterizing object boundaries in natural images. When a new image is presented the influence of the object interiors on neuronal activity occurs during a late phase of neuronal response and earlier when eye movements shift the image representation, implying that object representations are remapped across eye-movements. Our results reveal how object perception shapes the representation of natural images in early visual cortex.