How lateral inhibition and fast retinogeniculo-cortical oscillations create vision: A new hypothesis

The role of the physiological processes involved in human vision escapes clarification in current literature. Many unanswered questions about vision include: 1) whether there is more to lateral inhibition than previously proposed, 2) the role of the discs in rods and cones, 3) how inverted images on the retina are converted to erect images for visual perception, 4) what portion of the image formed on the retina is actually processed in the brain, 5) the reason we have an after-image with antagonistic colors, and 6) how we remember space. This theoretical article attempts to clarify some of the physiological processes involved with human vision. The global integration of visual information is conceptual; therefore, we include illustrations to present our theory. Universally, the eyeball is 2.4 cm and works together with membrane potential, correspondingly representing the retinal layers,photoreceptors, and cortex. Images formed within the photoreceptors must first be converted into chemical signals on the photoreceptors’ individual discs and the signals at each disc are transduced from light photons into electrical signals. We contend that the discs code the electrical signals into accurate distances and are shown in our figures. The pre-existing oscillations among the various cortices including the striate and parietal cortex,and the retina work in unison to create an infrastructure of visual space that functionally ‘‘places” the objects within this ‘‘neural” space. The horizontal layers integrate all discs accurately to create a retina that is pre-coded for distance. Our theory suggests image inversion never takes place on the retina,but rather images fall onto the retina as compressed and coiled, then amplified through lateral inhibition through intensification and amplification on the OFF-center cones. The intensified and amplified images are decompressed and expanded in the brain, which become the images we perceive as external vision

Where Are You Looking? Pseudogaze in Afterimages

How do we know where we are looking? A frequent assumption is that the subjective experience of our direction of gaze is assigned to the location in the world that falls on our fovea. However, we find that observers can shift their subjective direction of gaze among different nonfoveal points in an afterimage. Observers were asked to look directly at different corners of a diamond-shaped afterimage. When the requested corner was 3.5° in the periphery, the observer often reported that the image moved away in the direction of the attempted gaze shift. However, when the corner was at 1.75° eccentricity, most reported successfully fixating at the point. Eye-tracking data revealed systematic drift during the subjective fixations on peripheral locations. For example, when observers reported looking directly at a point above the fovea, their eyes were often drifting steadily upwards. We then asked observers to make a saccade from a subjectively fixated, nonfoveal point to another point in the afterimage, 7° directly below their fovea. The observers consistently reported making appropriately diagonal saccades, but the eye movement traces only occasionally followed the perceived oblique direction. These results suggest that the perceived direction of gaze can be assigned flexibly to an attended point near the fovea. This may be how the visual world acquires its stability during fixation of an object, despite the drifts and microsaccades that are normal characteristics of visual fixation

Neurophysiology

Contains reports on two research projects.National Institutes of Health (Grant 5 RO1 NB-04985-04)U. S. Air Force (Aerospace Medical Division) under Contract AF33(615)-3885Bell Telephone Laboratories Incorporated (Grant)DSR Project 55-257Bioscience Division of National Aeronautics and Space Administration through Contract NSR 22-009-13

Where Are You Looking? Pseudogaze in Afterimages

How do we know where we are looking? A frequent assumption is that the subjective experience of our direction of gaze is assigned to the location in the world that falls on our fovea. However, we find that observers can shift their subjective direction of gaze among different nonfoveal points in an afterimage. Observers were asked to look directly at different corners of a diamond-shaped afterimage. When the requested corner was 3.5° in the periphery, the observer often reported that the image moved away in the direction of the attempted gaze shift. However, when the corner was at 1.75° eccentricity, most reported successfully fixating at the point. Eye-tracking data revealed systematic drift during the subjective fixations on peripheral locations. For example, when observers reported looking directly at a point above the fovea, their eyes were often drifting steadily upwards. We then asked observers to make a saccade from a subjectively fixated, nonfoveal point to another point in the afterimage, 7° directly below their fovea. The observers consistently reported making appropriately diagonal saccades, but the eye movement traces only occasionally followed the perceived oblique direction. These results suggest that the perceived direction of gaze can be assigned flexibly to an attended point near the fovea. This may be how the visual world acquires its stability during fixation of an object, despite the drifts and microsaccades that are normal characteristics of visual fixation

Emocje a powidok wywołany sylwetkami kobiety i mężczyzny

Studies exploring the relationship that occurs between an afterimage induced by a stimulus of certain meaning and emotions are presented in this paper. Obtained results shed light on the afterimage phenomenon’s function in the perception process, as well as help to answer the question of the degree to which an afterimage is a carrier (manifestation, reflection) of emotional content of perceived stimulus. The relation between duration time of an afterimage of a female figure with regard to duration time of an afterimage of a male figure and the level of emotional problems concerning one’s mother was examined. Sixty-eight students of both genders took part in this research. The results showed that high level of emotional problems concerning one’s mother elongates duration time of an afterimage of a female figure with regard to duration time of an afterimage of a male figure on the statistically significant level. Obtained data allows us to conclude that duration time of an afterimage is related to emotional problems of an examined person.W artykule omówiono badania dotyczące relacji, jaka zachodzi między powidokiem wywołanym bodźcem o określonej treści a emocjami. Uzyskane wyniki mają rzucić światło na funkcję zjawiska powidoku w procesie percepcji, jak również pozwolić odpowiedzieć na pytanie, na ile powidok jest nośnikiem (przejawem, odzwierciedleniem) emocjonalnego znaczenia percypowanego bodźca. Zbadano zależność między czasem trwania powidoku sylwetki kobiety w odniesieniu do czasu trwania powidoku sylwetki mężczyzny a poziomem problemów emocjonalnych z matką. W badaniu uczestniczyło 68 studentów obu płci. Wyniki pokazały, że wysoki poziom problemów emocjonalnych z matką wydłuża czas trwania powidoku sylwetki kobiety w relacji do czasu trwania powidoku mężczyzny na poziomie istotnym statystycznie. Uzyskane rezultaty pozwalają wnioskować, że czas trwania powidoku jest związany z problemami emocjonalnymi osoby badanej

Strangely Lucid: Using Light To Destabilize

This paper examines the experience of lucid dreaming both from my own perspective and that of others, as well as the theoretical, psychological and artistic aspects of this phenomenon. I discuss destabilizing factors in lucid dreaming: a term used to describe things that normally do not happen or exist in reality as well as the feeling and perception in lucid dreams that persist in the waking state. I examine the research question: how might light be used to evoke a destabilizing feeling and perception inspired by lucid dreams in an art installation? I describe three installation projects that address this question

DEPTH PERCEPTION IN VIRTUAL PERIPERSONAL SPACE: AN INVESTIGATION OF MOTION PARALLAX ON PERCEPTION- VS ACTION-ESTIMATIONS

The goal of the current experiment was to investigate whether the addition of Motion Parallax will allow participants to make more accurate distance estimations, in both the real and virtual worlds, as well as to determine whether perception- and action-estimations were affected similarly. Due to rising number of COVID-19 cases in 2020, all in-person testing needed to cease with only one participant being tested with the full set of conditions in the final experimental configuration and one participant having been completed the motion parallax conditions only. As a result, the two participants were combined and only the motion parallax conditions were analyzed. Due to low statistical power, no significant main effects, nor significant interactions were discovered. Once the COVID-19 pandemic has subsidised, I am intending to collect data from all twenty-four participants with the full array of conditions in order to complete the current project. An increase in distance-estimation accuracy, especially in virtual reality conditions is still expected to be found

The Training Of Human Voluntary Torsion: Tonic And Dynamic Cycloversion.

Voluntary cyclotorsions were found not to have significant visually induced components in control studies where subjects were required to relax and observe the rotating visual stimuli used in the aforementioned pursuit and tracking tests. All voluntary cyclotorsions reported here were shown to be pure cycloversions occurring around the visual axes, even though only monocular visual stimuli (when occurring at all) were used. These results suggest that existing slow pursuit and saccadic systems control trained voluntary cycloversions. I propose that in making voluntary cycloversions, the visuomotor system utilizes the primitive slow phase and fast flicks from the phylogenetically old vestibulo-oculomotor reflex apparatus in a manner similar to the way the voluntary horizontal and vertical slow pursuit versional eye movement systems utilize this control apparatus

Aerospace medicine and biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes, supplement 162, January 1977

This bibliography lists 189 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in December 1976