A neurodynamical model of brightness induction in V1

Abstract

Brightness induction is the modulation of the perceived intensity of an area by the luminance of surrounding areas. Recent/nneurophysiological evidence suggests that brightness information might be explicitly represented in V1, in contrast to the/nmore common assumption that the striate cortex is an area mostly responsive to sensory information. Here we investigate/npossible neural mechanisms that offer a plausible explanation for such phenomenon. To this end, a neurodynamical model/nwhich is based on neurophysiological evidence and focuses on the part of V1 responsible for contextual influences is/npresented. The proposed computational model successfully accounts for well known psychophysical effects for static/ncontexts and also for brightness induction in dynamic contexts defined by modulating the luminance of surrounding areas./nThis work suggests that intra-cortical interactions in V1 could, at least partially, explain brightness induction effects and/nreveals how a common general architecture may account for several different fundamental processes, such as visual/nsaliency and brightness induction, which emerge early in the visual processing pathway.