An interactive cortical architecture for perceptual organization by accentuation

Accentuation has been proposed as a general principle of perceptual organization. Here, we have developed a neurodynamic architecture to explain how accentuation affects boundary segmentation and shape perception. The model consists of bottom-up and top-down pathways. Bottom-up processing involves a set of feature maps that compute bottom-up salience of surfaces, boundaries, boundary completions, and junctions. Then, a feature-based winner-take-all network selects the most salient locations. Top-down processing includes an object-based attention stage that allows enhanced neural activity to propagate from the most salient locations to all connected locations, and a visual segmentation stage that employs inhibitory connections to segregate boundaries into distinct maps. The model was tested on a series of computer simulations showing how the position of the accent affects boundary segregation in the square-diamond and the pointing illusion. The model was also tested on a variety of texture segregation tasks, showing that its performance was comparable to that of human observers. The model suggests that there is an intermediate stage of visual processing between perceptual grouping and object recognition that helps the visual system choose between competing percepts of the ambiguous stimulus.