An Emerging Neural Model of 3D Shape, Spatial Attention, Eye Movement Search, and Object Category Learning

Stephen Grossberg, Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems, Center for Adaptive Systems, and Center of Excellence for Learning in Education, Science, and Technology, Boston University

http://cns.bu.edu/~steve

Major progress has been made in modeling how the laminar circuits of visual cortex see and learn to recognize objects and their 3D shapes. Such models link brain mechanisms to behavioral functions, and predict brain representations of conscious and unconscious experiences, including links between behavior, neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, biophysics, and biochemistry. This progress has included discovery of new computational paradigms whereby advanced brains autonomously adapt in real time to a changing world filled with unexpected events.  These new paradigms include Complementary Computing, which clarifies the nature of brain specialization, and Laminar Computing, which clarifies why mammalian neocortex uses laminar circuits to represent multiple types of higher intelligence.

The talk will discuss a model of how the brain computes representations of 3D boundaries and surfaces that together compute a multiple-scale distributed representation of 3D object shape. This FACADE model, and its further development and realization in laminar cortical circuits as the 3D LAMINART model, provide a unified explanation of many perceptual and neurobiological data bases about 3D vision using model mechanisms and circuits that represent processes in cortical areas V1, V2, and V4. The talk will then discuss how the brain learns to categorize multiple object views into an emerging view-invariant object representation. This ARTSCAN model clarifies the following issues: What is an object? How does the brain learn to bind multiple views of an object into a view-invariant object category, during both unsupervised and supervised learning, while scanning its various parts with active eye movements? In particular, how does the brain avoid the problem of erroneously classifying views of different objects as belonging to a single object, and how does the brain direct the eyes to explore an object’s surface even before it has a concept of the object? How does the brain coordinate object and spatial attention during object learning and recognition? ARTSCAN proposes an answer to these questions by modeling interactions between cortical areas V1, V2, V3A, V4, ITp, ITa, PPC, LIP, and PFC. This part of the talk will outline how processes of Consciousness, Learning, Expectation, Attention, Resonance, and Synchrony (CLEARS) interact to enable the brain to learn object representations quickly without experiencing catastrophic forgetting.

References (see http://cns.bu.edu/~steve)

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Grossberg, S. and Hong, S. (2006). A neural model of surface perception: Lightness, anchoring, and filling-in. Spatial Vision, 19, 263-321.

Grossberg, S., Kuhlmann, L., and Mingolla, E. (2007). A neural model of 3D shape-from-texture: Multiple-scale filtering, boundary grouping, and surface filling-in. Vision Research, 47, 634-672.

Grossberg, S., and Swaminathan, G. (2004). A laminar cortical model for 3D perception of slanted and curved surfaces and of 2D images: development, attention and bistability. Vision Research, 44, 1147-1187.

Grossberg, S. and Versace, M. (2008). Spikes, synchrony, and attentive learning by laminar thalamocortical circuits. Brain Research, 1218, 278-312.

Grossberg, S., Yazdanbakhsh, A., Cao, Y., and Swaminathan, G. (2008). How does binocular rivalry emerge from cortical mechanisms of 3-D vision? Vision Research, 48, 2232-2250.

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