双耳条件下超前声对人分辨滞后声强度的影响

在复杂声环境中,对声音强度的分辨是听觉系统对声音信号精确处理的重要功能之一.到目前为止,有关人对声音强度分辨的研究都是在单耳条件下进行的,然而,正常条件下人都是利用双耳感知强度和方位变化的声音.以人对声刺激强度的最小可察觉差异(just noticeable difference,JND)为强度分辨阈值的指标,观察双耳条件下超前声对人分辨滞后声强度的影响.实验在封闭声场中进行,声刺激强度和空间方位的控制是通过改变双耳平均声压(average binaural level,ABL)和双耳声压差(interaural level difference,ILD)来模拟的.实验结果表明,与安静条件下人对声刺激强度的分辨阈值相比,低强度的超前声对人分辨滞后声强度的阈值无显著影响,而中等及以上强度(ABL大于或等于40 dB)的超前声可提高人分辨滞后声强度的阈值,阈值的提高随超前声强度的增加呈单调增大的趋势.当超前声强度一定时,超前声对人分辨滞后声强度的影响随滞后声强度的增加而衰减,对分辨较高强度的滞后声的阈值影响不显著,该结果与单耳的研究结果有明显差异.实验未发现超前声和滞后声ILD的相对改变对人探测滞后声强度变化的阈值有显著影响.     

对刺激朝向改变的自动加工:事件相关电位的证据

利用事件相关电位（ＥＲＰ）技术,探讨非注意状态的刺激朝向改变是否引起自动加工。刺激为具有一定朝向（垂直和水平各５０％）和一定空间频率（低频９０％,高频１０％）的光栅。要求被试忽略光栅朝向,对高频光栅作反应。刺激呈现时间为５０ｍｓ,刺激间隔在２５０至４５０ｍｓ之间随机变化。低频光栅刺激被分为两类,“匹配”（与前一刺激朝向相同）和“失匹配”（与前一刺激朝向不同）。结果发现,失匹配刺激比匹配刺激诱发出更大的枕区Ｐ１、更大的前额－中央区Ｎ１以及更大的前部与顶区Ｐ２,但前部与顶区的Ｎ２却更小。这些ＥＲＰｓ变化提示,视觉对非注意的刺激朝向变化进行了一定程度的自动加工;视觉通道可能存在类似听觉失匹配负波（ＭＭＮ）的、然而机制不同的自动加工成分     

视觉大细胞通路对汉字识别的影响

我们研究的目的是探查视觉大细胞系统在汉字识别中的作用.研究以24名大学生正常阅读者作为被试,通过调控汉字材料的空间频率和时间频率区分出大细胞通路敏感刺激和正常视觉刺激两种条件,并采用整体/部件字形判断任务来比较在不同视觉条件下,被试加工汉字整体和部件信息的过程,记录反应时和错误率.结果表明,在大细胞条件下,被试对整字信息的判断要显著快于对部件的判断,即出现整体优先效应.而在正常视觉条件下,整体和部件判断的反应时无显著差异.同时,在大细胞条件下,被试进行部件判断的错误率显著高于整体判断,在正常视觉条件下两者差异不显著.研究结果表明视觉大细胞通路促进了汉字整体信息的加工.     

一阶运动和二阶运动方向辨别的知觉学习及传递性研究

为了明确视觉系统对一阶运动和二阶运动识别机制之间的相互关系,采用一阶运动和二阶运动的正弦光栅刺激,在旁中央凹对训练组(14名被试)进行运动方向辨别的知觉学习训练．通过比较训练前后的对比敏感度变化,并同对照组(11名被试)的结果比较后发现：a．在旁中央凹,一阶运动光栅方向辨别的训练提高了被试辨别一阶运动方向的能力,但是这种提高的效果却不能传递到二阶运动光栅的方向辨别任务当中;b．二阶运动光栅方向辨别的训练在提高被试二阶运动方向识别能力的同时,也提高了被试在一阶运动光栅方向辨别任务中的表现．这一训练效果的“非对称”传递现象提示,人的视觉系统中存在两种不同的机制分别用于感知一阶运动和二阶运动,但这两种机制并非截然不同,而是部分分离的．     

对比度检测学习提高猫的视觉对比敏感度

对人的心理学研究结果显示,对比度检测学习可提高学习者对视觉刺激的对比敏感度,但其潜在的神经机制尚不清楚。该研究用二选一（two-alternative forced choice）方法训练3只猫（Felis catus）通过单眼进行对比度检测学习,发现每只猫对视觉刺激的对比敏感度随着训练而显著提高。该学习效果虽然对训练眼有明显的特异性,但部分学习效果可以传递给非训练眼,提示对比度检测学习可能会引起双眼信息汇聚前后的视觉中枢的神经可塑性。另外,猫视觉对比敏感度的提高主要发生在训练刺激的空间频率附近,表明对比度检测学习具有一定的空间频率选择性。该研究结果显示,猫对视觉刺激的对比度检测学习表现出与人类相似的特性,因此可以作为模式动物来研究人类学习诱导的视觉对比敏感度升高的神经机制。     

视网膜周边视野人工成像研究

目的 对于中心视力受损的人群，新型人工视觉系统可以将简化后的图像投射到视网膜上黄斑区以外的区域，从而帮助他们利用周边视觉感知信息。本文探究周边视野的感知特征，为植入式光学人工视觉系统的图形编码设计提供依据。方法 设计了探索周边视野感知特征的实验环境，向被试施加符号、数字、汉字的图案刺激，并控制刺激的大小、颜色组合、偏离角度、运动情况。用图形化的方法分析感知能力与各变量的关系。结果 周边视野的感知能力随偏离角度增大而下降，其趋势分为两个阶段，且受颜色组合、大小的影响明显。结论 研究结果提供了感知识别率较高的变量组合，为人工视觉系统的光学投影、眼内光学植入装置、特殊通信彩色符号编码开发等“人机结合”新技术提供重要的实验依据。     

抑制性整合野细胞的对比度响应函数研究

采用细胞外记录的方法,在单独刺激经典感受野(classical receptive field,CRF)或同时刺激CRF和感受野外区域(extra-receptive field,ERF)的情况下,测量了猫初级视觉皮层细胞的对比度响应函数。当刺激所用的中心和外周运动光栅的参数一致时,与仅刺激CRF相比,强的ERF抑制使对比度响应函数动态区增加,响应增益和对比度增益降低。当中心和外周光栅的方位相差90度时,与方位参数一致的情况相比,大部分细胞的ERF抑制减弱,对比度响应函数的动态区减小,对比度增益和响应增益增加;少数细胞的ERF对CRF的作用从抑制变为易化,其对比度响应函数的动态区与只刺激CRF相比还要小,而对比度增益和响应增益还要大。揭示了初级视觉皮层细胞的抑制型整合野在CRF和ERF图像的方位及对比度差异检测中的作用机制。     

视觉诱发电位(VEP)方位效应与刺激位置的关系

以人视觉诱发电位(VEP)反应为指标,在视野的不同位置测定了VEP对四个方位的闪烁方波光栅刺激(时间频率2.9Hz,空间频率1.4c/deg,对比度0.94)的反应幅度。在距中央凹20°视角同心圆的八个刺激位置上,VEP反应幅度对与向心线垂直方位的光栅刺激(同心圆的切线方向),有统计意义上的优势。这一规律在垂直、水平向心线上尤为明显。从总体上未发现VEP反应幅度与刺激光栅方位有着明显的关系。这说明在人视野周边区,VEP反应幅度与光栅方位和向心线的夹角(偏向角)相关,而与光栅的绝对方位无关。在相同的刺激条件下,中央区的VEP反应幅度与刺激光栅方位之间也未发现明显关系。     

认知障碍患者theta节律脑功能网络连接异常

为了深入观察不同认知功能老年人的大脑功能连接特性,选取了20名老年人参与京剧体验任务,并记录了他们在听京剧前后闭眼静息状态下的脑电信号。根据被试简易精神状态量表得分将其分为高分组与低分组,通过分别计算不同脑电频带下的相位同步指数,构建了两组被试的大脑功能网络;然后,进一步计算了网络连接参数聚类系数和特征路径长度,并从不同角度分析了不同被试的大脑功能连接特性。结果发现:在theta频带下,低分组老年人的全局相位同步指数低于高分组;在京剧体验之后,高分组老年人theta频带的全局相位同步指数有显著提高,而低分组在各频段都没发现京剧效应;在固定阈值的前提下,低分组老年人在较大阈值范围内的聚类系数低于高分组,而特征路径长度高于高分组,表现出小世界特性相对缺失;进一步地,在保证不同被试脑网络边数相同的条件下(即采用相同的度),对两组被试的脑网络参数进行了统计分析,未发现组间差异。综上,较低认知能力的老年人表现出更少的脑网络连接边数。该研究表明,认知障碍老年人脑功能网络相对于正常人有所破损,京剧可以增强老年人的大脑功能连接特性。     

内容和运动方向感知计算模型

对视野中的物体及运动方向进行感知是视觉感知的基本问题之一,较高级视皮层从V1区的简单细胞开始分为两个通路：“What通路”和“Where通路”．前者对物体的形状、颜色、纹理等内容感知,后者对空间运动速度和方向等感知．本文利用仿脑视觉信息处理计算结构,研究视觉内容和运动方向上的感知计算模型、计算机理和学习算法．该计算模型是一个三层的神经网络,第一层是视觉信号输入层,用于接收外界图像刺激．第二层是神经信息内部表象层,与第一层的网络联结是通过神经元稀疏表象原理自适应形成神经元的感受野．为此,引入Kullback_Leibler散度描述神经元响应的独立性,极小化该代价函数导出网络联结权值的学习算法．从自然图像块中学习得到图像基函数,这些基函数具有局部性、朝向性和带通滤波性．这些性质与生理实验结果中的V1区简单细胞感受野特征相吻合．将这些基函数作为神经元的感受野,并在第三层对较高级视皮层的内容感知和运动感知神经元进行建模．在理想刺激中加入一定量的噪声后,该模型对内容和运动方向的感知仍有较高的准确率和较好的鲁棒性．最后给出的实验仿真结果说明模型的可行性和学习算法的简单有效性．     

Orientation acuity estimated with simultaneous and successive procedures.

Orientation discrimination thresholds for medium contrast sinewave grating stimuli were estimated by a forced-choice procedure for the two principal, and the two main oblique axes. The results obtained for simultaneous presentation with a centre/surround stimulus arrangement are compared with the threshold estimates obtained when the two stimuli to be discriminated do not overlap in time. We find that orientation acuity depends on the temporal relationship of the discriminanda. Estimates of orientation threshold with simultaneous presentation are lower on all axes tested than those obtained with successive presentation; the greatest difference in orientation acuity was found at obliques. The data support the hypothesis that the meridional anisotropy in orientation discrimination that is found with conventional, two-interval forced-choice methods is not entirely attributable to anatomical and physiological changes at the level of the striate cortex.     

Practicing coarse orientation discrimination improves orientation signals in macaque cortical area v4

Practice improves the performance in visual tasks, but mechanisms underlying this adult brain plasticity are unclear. Single-cell studies reported no [1], weak [2], or moderate [3, 4] perceptual learning-related changes in macaque visual areas V1 and V4, whereas none were found in middle temporal (MT) [5]. These conflicting results and modeling of human (e.g., [6, 7]) and monkey data [8] suggested that changes in the readout of visual cortical signals underlie perceptual learning, rather than changes in these signals. In the V4 learning studies, monkeys discriminated small differences in orientation, whereas in the MT study, the animals discriminated opponent motion directions. Analogous to the latter study, we trained monkeys to discriminate static orthogonal orientations masked by noise. V4 neurons showed robust increases in their capacity to discriminate the trained orientations during the course of the training. This effect was observed during discrimination and passive fixation but specifically for the trained orientations. The improvement in neural discrimination was due to decreased response variability and an increase of the difference between the mean responses for the two trained orientations. These findings demonstrate that perceptual learning in a coarse discrimination task indeed can change the response properties of a cortical sensory area.     

Orientation discrimination and categorization of photographs of natural objects by pigeons

In Experiment 1, pigeons trained to discriminate rightside-up and upside-down orientations of slides of natural scenes with humans successfully transferred to new slides of the same kind. Experiment 2 revealed that both the orientations of the human figures and of the background scenes controlled the discrimination. When they were oppositely oriented, the background orientation cue was dominant. In Experiment 3 slides showing objects on a white background were presented either rightside up or upside down, with each slide presented in one orientation only. One group of pigeons learned to classify the slides according to their orientations. The other group learned to classify the slides according to arbitrary groupings. When the slides were shown rotated by 180 degrees, the latter group continued to discriminate the individual slides (i.e., the pigeons showed orientation invariance). The former group classified the rotated slides according to their orientations (i.e., orientation discrimination). In Experiment 4, pigeons learned the orientation discrimination with separate sets of human and bird figures. Partial reversal training in one object class transferred to the rest of stimuli in this object class but did not to the other object class. These results suggest that pigeons can learn to discriminate photographs on the basis of orientation but that orientation-based equivalence relationship is not formed between object classes.     

Vision of the honeybee Apis mellifera for patterns with one pair of equal orthogonal bars

The visual discrimination of patterns of two equal orthogonal black bars by honeybees has been studied in a Y-choice apparatus with the patterns presented vertically at a fixed range. Previous work shows that bees can discriminate the locations of one, or possibly more, contrasts in targets that are in the same position throughout the training. Therefore, in critical experiments, the locations of areas of black were regularly shuffled to make them useless as cues. The bees discriminate consistent radial and tangential cues irrespective of their location on the target during learning and testing. Orientation cues, to be discriminated, must be presented on corresponding sides of the two targets. When orientation, radial and tangential cues are omitted or made useless by alternating them, discrimination is impossible, although the patterns may look quite different to us. The shape or the layout of local cues is not re-assembled from the locations of the bars, even when there are only two bars in the pattern, as if the bees cannot locate the individual bars within the large spatial fields of their global filters.     

Transfer between views of conspecific faces at different ages or in different orientations by sheep

Sheep are able to discriminate photographs of conspecific faces. The present study investigates adult ewe's recognition of faces of the same animal between different ages or between different orientations. Twelve adult sheep were first trained to discriminate between faces of two unfamiliar animals, one of which was associated with a food reward. Transfer of discrimination from this pair to the same pair but at a different age, or in a different orientation, was then evaluated (transfer test), and compared with a new pair of the same condition (control test). Learned discrimination of a frontal view of unfamiliar 3-month-old lambs' faces improved subsequent discrimination of the same pair when they were 1-month-old in comparison to discrimination of new 1-month-old faces. Moreover, sheep that were trained to discriminate frontal views of unfamiliar adult individuals discriminated profile views of the same animals more accurately than that of novels. However, learned discrimination of the profile view of unfamiliar adult faces had no effect on subsequent discrimination of the frontal view of that same pair. These results suggest that to some extent sheep recognise faces of unfamiliar animals at different ages and in different orientations.     

Olfactory discrimination ability of CD-1 mice for aliphatic aldehydes as a function of stimulus concentration

Using an operant conditioning paradigm, we tested the ability of CD-1 mice to discriminate between members of a homologous series of aliphatic aldehydes presented at four different concentrations. We found that the mice were clearly capable of discriminating between all odorant pairs when stimuli were presented at concentrations of 1, 0.01, and 0.001 ppm (corresponding to four, two, and one log unit above the highest individual detection threshold) with no significant difference in performance between these concentrations. In contrast, the animals generally failed to discriminate above chance level when stimuli were presented at 0.0001 ppm (corresponding to the highest individual detection threshold) although stimuli were clearly detectable. Further, we found a significant negative correlation between discrimination performance and structural similarity of odorants in terms of differences in carbon chain length. These findings suggest that an increase in stimulus concentration of only one log unit above detection threshold appears to be sufficient for recruitment of additional subpopulations of odorant receptors to allow for qualitative recognition of aliphatic aldehydes.     

Electrophysiological investigation of the texture discrimination mechanisms

In electrophysiological and psychophysical experiments, we investigated mechanisms of the visual system underlying local and global texture processing. Textures included rectangular matrixes composed of Gabor patches (sine wave grating windowed by a Gaussian envelope). Orientation of each grating varied from 0 to 165 degrees with the step of 15 degrees. Matrixes differed by the amount of Gabor patches with vertical or horizontal orientation. The observers' task was to discriminate the dominant orientation. The advantage of such stimuli involved a possibility to calculate global statistics of the textures, which we considered as the difference between whole amount of vertical and horizontal orientations in the stimulus irrespective of their location. The local statistics was calculated as relative amount of spatially organized nearby gratings (i. e. collinear contours). The subjects' accuracy was low in discriminating less organized textures and gradually improved with the amount of vertically of horizontally oriented Gabor patches, while the reaction time decreased. Visual evoked potentials (VEPs) recorded from occipital lobes revealed different dependencies of their components' magnitude on the amount of equally oriented gratings. Amplitude of the late positive component P3 with latency 400 ms directly depended on the texture discriminability, and N2 wave with latency 180 ms had an S-like dependence. Opposite to that, the magnitude of P2 wave with latency 260 ms was maximal in response to less organized textures and gradually decreased with the amount of equally oriented gratings. The dependencies received were compared with the textures' statistics. Data analysis allowed us to suppose that, in the conditions of our experimental paradigm, two mechanisms were involved in discrimination of the textures--the local and the global processing. We believe that by recording VEPs one can separately investigate activity of these two processes.     

Rapid dynamics of contrast responses in the cat primary visual cortex

The visual information we receive during natural vision changes rapidly and continuously. The visual system must adapt to the spatiotemporal contents of the environment in order to efficiently process the dynamic signals. However, neuronal responses to luminance contrast are usually measured using drifting or stationary gratings presented for a prolonged duration. Since motion in our visual field is continuous, the signals received by the visual system contain an abundance of transient components in the contrast domain. Here using a modified reverse correlation method, we studied the properties of responses of neurons in the cat primary visual cortex to different contrasts of grating stimuli presented statically and transiently for 40 ms, and showed that neurons can effectively discriminate the rapidly changing contrasts. The change in the contrast response function (CRF) over time mainly consisted of an increment in contrast gain (CRF shifts to left) in the developing phase of temporal responses and a decrement in response gain (CRF shifts downward) in the decay phase. When the distribution range of stimulus contrasts was increased, neurons demonstrated decrement in contrast gain and response gain. Our results suggest that contrast gain control (contrast adaptation) and response gain control mechanisms are well established during the first tens of milliseconds after stimulus onset and may cooperatively mediate the rapid dynamic responses of visual cortical neurons to the continuously changing contrast. This fast contrast adaptation may play a role in detecting contrast contours in the context of visual scenes that are varying rapidly.     

Long-term Retention of Many Visual Patterns by Pigeons

Using a simultaneous discrimination procedure it was shown that pigeons were capable of learning to discriminate 100 different black and white visual patterns from a further 625 similar stimuli, where responses to the former were rewarded and responses to the latter were not rewarded. Tests in which novel stimuli replaced either the rewarded or nonrewarded stimuli showed that the pigeons had not only learned about the 100 positive stimuli but also about the 625 negative stimuli. The fact that novel stimuli enhanced discrimination performance when they replaced the many negative stimuli indicated that the pigeons had categorized the stimuli into two classes, familiar and less familiar. Long-term retention was examined after a 6-month interval. To begin with it seemed poor but a recognition test performed after the subjects had been retrained with a subset of the stimuli after an interval of 7 months confirmed that pigeons are capable of retaining in memory several 100 visual items over an extended period. It is proposed that the initial retrieval weakness was due to a forgetting of the contingencies between stimulus categories and response outcomes. Further tests involving variously modified stimuli indicated that while stimulus size variations had a negative effect on performance, orientation changes did not interfere with recognition, supporting the view that small visual stimuli are memorized by pigeons largely free of orientation labels. The experiment generally confirms that pigeons have the capacity of storing information about a large number of visual stimuli over long periods of time.     

The tactile perception of stimulus orientation

Studies of the visual system suggest that, at an early stage of form processing, a stimulus is represented as a set of contours and that a critical feature of these local contours is their orientation. Here, we characterize the ability of human observers to identify or discriminate the orientation of bars and edges presented to the distal fingerpad. The experiments were performed using a 400-probe stimulator that allowed us to flexibly deliver stimuli across a wide range of conditions. Orientation thresholds, approximately 20 degrees on average, varied only slightly across modes of stimulus presentation (scanned or indented), stimulus amplitudes, scanning speeds, and different stimulus types (bars or edges). The tactile orientation acuity was found to be poorer than its visual counterpart for stimuli of similar aspect ratio, contrast, and size. This result stands in contrast to the equivalent spatial acuity of the two systems (at the limit set by peripheral innervation density) and to the results of studies of tactile and visual letter recognition, which show that the two modalities yield comparable performance when stimuli are scaled appropriately.