Lehar Steven
Peli Lab, Schepens Eye Research Institute, Boston, MA 02114-2500, USA.
Behav Brain Sci. 2003 Aug;26(4):375-408; discussion 408-43. doi: 10.1017/s0140525x03000098.
A serious crisis is identified in theories of neurocomputation, marked by a persistent disparity between the phenomenological or experiential account of visual perception and the neurophysiological level of description of the visual system. In particular, conventional concepts of neural processing offer no explanation for the holistic global aspects of perception identified by Gestalt theory. The problem is paradigmatic and can be traced to contemporary concepts of the functional role of the neural cell, known as the Neuron Doctrine. In the absence of an alternative neurophysiologically plausible model, I propose a perceptual modeling approach, to model the percept as experienced subjectively, rather than modeling the objective neurophysiological state of the visual system that supposedly subserves that experience. A Gestalt Bubble model is presented to demonstrate how the elusive Gestalt principles of emergence, reification, and invariance can be expressed in a quantitative model of the subjective experience of visual consciousness. That model in turn reveals a unique computational strategy underlying visual processing, which is unlike any algorithm devised by man, and certainly unlike the atomistic feed-forward model of neurocomputation offered by the Neuron Doctrine paradigm. The perceptual modeling approach reveals the primary function of perception as that of generating a fully spatial virtual-reality replica of the external world in an internal representation. The common objections to this "picture-in-the-head" concept of perceptual representation are shown to be ill founded.
神经计算理论中存在一个严重危机，其特征是视觉感知的现象学或经验性描述与视觉系统的神经生理学描述层面之间持续存在差异。特别是，神经处理的传统概念无法解释格式塔理论所确定的感知的整体全局方面。这个问题具有典型性，可追溯到神经细胞功能作用的当代概念，即神经元学说。在缺乏另一种神经生理学上合理的模型的情况下，我提出一种感知建模方法，对主观体验到的感知进行建模，而不是对据推测支持该体验的视觉系统的客观神经生理状态进行建模。提出了一个格式塔气泡模型，以展示难以捉摸的格式塔涌现、具体化和不变性原则如何在视觉意识主观体验的定量模型中得以表达。该模型进而揭示了视觉处理背后一种独特的计算策略，它不同于人类设计的任何算法，当然也不同于神经元学说范式提供的神经计算的原子式前馈模型。感知建模方法揭示了感知的主要功能是在内部表征中生成外部世界的完全空间虚拟现实复制品。对这种“脑海中的画面”感知表征概念的常见反对意见被证明是没有根据的。
