Predicting cortical dark/bright asymmetries from natural image statistics and early visual transforms.

ABSTRACT: The nervous system has evolved in an environment with structure and predictability. One of the ubiquitous principles of sensory systems is the creation of circuits that capitalize on this predictability. Previous work has identified predictable non-uniformities in the distributions of basic visual features in natural images that are relevant to the encoding tasks of the visual system. Here, we report that the well-established statistical distributions of visual features--such as visual contrast, spatial scale, and depth--differ between bright and dark image components. Following this analysis, we go on to trace how these differences in natural images translate into different patterns of cortical input that arise from the separate bright (ON) and dark (OFF) pathways originating in the retin

SUBMITTER: Cooper EA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4447361 | biostudies-literature | 2015 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature