Different spatial frequency bands selectively signal for natural image statistics in the early visual system

Hansen, Bruce C.; Johnson, A. F.; Ellemberg, Dave

doi:10.1152/jn.00288.2012

Cited by 32 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 72 publications

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“…One might then ask whether there is a linear association between increased visual complexity and worse perceptual and voluntary attentional processing. Neurophysiological studies (Hansen et al, 2012) have shown that, in young adults, an increase in visual complexity actually stimulates enhanced responses by the visual system (measured through evoked potentials), but up to a certain threshold after which saturation is reached, supporting a detrimental effect on visual search for scenes which are perceptually too complex (Hansen et al, 2012; Cavalcante et al, 2014). …”

Section: Complexity and Cognitive Performancementioning

confidence: 99%

Complexity As Key to Designing Cognitive-Friendly Environments for Older People

Cassarino

Setti

2016

Front. Psychol.

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The lived environment is the arena where our cognitive skills, preferences, and attitudes come together to determine our ability to interact with the world. The mechanisms through which lived environments can benefit cognitive health in older age are yet to be fully understood. The existing literature suggests that environments which are perceived as stimulating, usable and aesthetically appealing can improve or facilitate cognitive performance both in young and older age. Importantly, optimal stimulation for cognition seems to depend on experiencing sufficiently stimulating environments while not too challenging. Environmental complexity is an important contributor to determining whether an environment provides such an optimal stimulation. The present paper reviews a selection of studies which have explored complexity in relation to perceptual load, environmental preference and perceived usability to propose a framework which explores direct and indirect environmental influences on cognition, and to understand these influences in relation to aging processes. We identify ways to define complexity at different environmental scales, going from micro low-level perceptual features of scenes, to design qualities of proximal environments (e.g., streets, neighborhoods), to broad geographical areas (i.e., natural vs. urban environments). We propose that studying complexity at these different scales will provide new insight into the design of cognitive-friendly environments.

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Section: Complexity and Cognitive Performancementioning

confidence: 99%

Complexity As Key to Designing Cognitive-Friendly Environments for Older People

Cassarino

Setti

2016

Front. Psychol.

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“…; Hansen et al . , ; Castaldi et al . ), though primary visual cortex (V1) may be less sensitive to phase (Freeman et al .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Non‐uniform phase sensitivity in spatial frequency maps of the human visual cortex

Farivar

Clavagnier

Hansen

et al. 2017

The Journal of Physiology

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Complex natural scenes can be decomposed into their oriented spatial frequency (SF) and phase relationships, both of which are represented locally at the earliest stages of cortical visual processing. The SF preference map in the human cortex, obtained using synthetic stimuli, is orderly and correlates strongly with eccentricity. In addition, early visual areas show sensitivity to the phase information that describes the relationship between SFs and thereby dictates the structure of the image. Taken together, two possibilities arise for the joint representation of SF and phase: either the entirety of the cortical SF map is uniformly sensitive to phase, or a particular set of SFs is selectively phase sensitive - for example, greater phase sensitivity for higher SFs that define fine-scale edges in a complex scene. To test between these two possibilities, we constructed a novel continuous natural scene video whereby phase information was maintained in one SF band but scrambled elsewhere. By shifting the central frequency of the phase-aligned band in time, we mapped the phase-sensitive SF preference of the visual cortex. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we found that phase sensitivity in early visual areas is biased toward higher SFs. Compared to a SF map of the same scene obtained using linear-filtered stimuli, a much larger patch of areas V1 and V2 is sensitive to the phase alignment of higher SFs. The results of early areas cannot be explained by attention. Our results suggest non-uniform sensitivity to phase alignment in population-level SF representations, with phase alignment being particularly important for fine-scale edge representations of natural scenes.

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“…Indices of earlier electrophysiological signatures of attentional capture, such as the P1 and N1, have only been examined in one study using smokers and nonsmokers, and these components did not appear to differ across the groups (Littel & Franken, 2011), although these components did differ across categories of images presented (e.g., smoking vs. positive images, for the P1). These early components (e.g., the P1) can be highly sensitive to the physical properties of the stimuli (e.g., luminance, spatial frequency; Ellemberg, Hammarrenger, Lepore, Roy, & Guillemot, 2001;Hansen, Johnson, & Ellemberg, 2012;Tobimatsu & KuritaTashima, 1993), as well as to attention (Mangun, Buonocore, Girelli, & Jha, 1998), and as such, it is unclear whether the lack of early modulation observed in the Littel and Franken (2011) study was due to physical differences between the stimuli overwhelming any differences that may have been related to attention, or whether attention simply would not be drawn to the smoking-related stimuli at such an early time period. Critically, of the aforementioned addiction-related ERP studies, only Littel and Franken (2007) explicitly controlled for the low-level physical characteristics of the stimuli used, and as such, any attentional capture reported in the other studies may have been due at least in part to these physical differences (e.g., luminance), as well as to the complexity of the stimuli themselves, rather than to the addiction-related properties of the stimuli per se.…”

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confidence: 99%

An electrophysiological dissociation of craving and stimulus-dependent attentional capture in smokers

Donohue

Woldorff

Hopf

et al. 2016

Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci

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It has been suggested that over the course of an addiction, addiction-related stimuli become highly salient in the environment, thereby capturing an addict's attention. To assess these effects neurally in smokers, and how they interact with craving, we recorded electroencephalography (EEG) in two sessions: one in which participants had just smoked (noncraving), and one in which they had abstained from smoking for 3 h (craving). In both sessions, participants performed a visual-search task in which two colored squares were presented to the left and right of fixation, with one color being the target to which they should shift attention and discriminate the locations of two missing corners. Task-irrelevant images, both smoking-related and non-smoking-related, were embedded in both squares, enabling the shift of spatial attention to the target to be examined as a function of the addiction-related image being present or absent in the target, the distractor, or both. Behaviorally, participants were slower to respond to targets containing a smoking-related image. Furthermore, when the target contained a smoking-related image, the neural responses indicated that attention had been shifted less strongly to the target; when the distractor contained a smoking-related image, the shift of attention to the contralateral target was stronger. These effects occurred independently of craving and suggest that participants were actively avoiding the smoking-related images. Together, these results provide an electrophysiological dissociation between addiction-related visual-stimulus processing and the neural activity associated with craving.

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Different spatial frequency bands selectively signal for natural image statistics in the early visual system

Cited by 32 publications

References 72 publications

Complexity As Key to Designing Cognitive-Friendly Environments for Older People

Complexity As Key to Designing Cognitive-Friendly Environments for Older People

Non‐uniform phase sensitivity in spatial frequency maps of the human visual cortex

An electrophysiological dissociation of craving and stimulus-dependent attentional capture in smokers

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