Dartmouth College.
J Cogn Neurosci. 1996 Summer;8(3):197-230. doi: 10.1162/jocn.1996.8.3.197.
A great deal of evidence suggests that early in processing, retinal images are filtered by parallel, spatial frequency selective channels. We attempt to incorporate this view of early vision with the principle of global precedence, which holds that Gestalt-like processes sensitive to global image configurations tend to dominate local feature processing in human pattern perception. Global precedence is inferred from the pattern of reaction times observed when visual patterns contain multiple cues at different levels of spatial scale. Specifically, it is frequently observed that global processing times are largely unaffected by conflicting local cues, but local processing times are substantially lengthened by conflicting global cues. The asymmetry of these effects suggests the dominant role of global configurations. Since global spatial information is effectively represented by low spatial frequencies, global precedence potentially implies a low frequency dominance. The thesis is that low spatial frequencies tend to be available before information carried by higher frequency bands, producing a coarse-to-fine temporal order in visual spatial perception. It is suggested that a variety of factors contribute to the "prior entry" of low frequency information, including the high contrast gain of the magnocellular pathway, the amplitude spectra typical of natural images, and inhibitory interactions between the parallel frequency-tuned channels. Evidence suggesting a close relationship between global precedence and spatial frequency channels is provided by observations that the essential features of the global precedence effect are obtained using patterns consisting of low and high frequency sinusoids. The hypothesis that these asymmetric interference effects are due to interactions between parallel spatial channels is supported by an analysis of reaction times (RTs), which shows that RTs to redundant low and high frequency cues produce less facilitation than predictions that assume the channels are independent. In view of previous work showing that global precedence depends upon the low frequency content of the stimuli, we suggest that low spatial frequencies represent the sine qua non for the dominance of configurational cues in human pattern perception, and that this configurational dominance reflects the microgenesis of visual pattern perception. This general view of the temporal dynamics of visual pattern recognition is discussed, is considered from an evolutionary perspective, and is related to certain statistical regularities in natural scenes. Potential adaptive advantages of an interactive parallel architecture that confers an initial processing advantage to low resolution information are explored.
大量证据表明，在早期处理过程中，视网膜图像会通过平行的空间频率选择通道进行过滤。我们试图将这种早期视觉观点与全局优先原则结合起来，该原则认为，对全局图像结构敏感的格式塔过程往往会主导人类模式感知中的局部特征处理。全局优先原则是从观察到的视觉模式中多个线索在不同空间尺度水平上的反应时间模式中推断出来的。具体来说，人们经常观察到，全局处理时间基本上不受冲突的局部线索的影响，但局部处理时间会因冲突的全局线索而大大延长。这些影响的不对称性表明全局结构起着主导作用。由于全局空间信息是通过低空间频率有效地表示的，因此全局优先原则可能意味着低频优势。其论点是，低空间频率往往会先于高频带所携带的信息出现，从而在视觉空间感知中产生从粗到细的时间顺序。有人认为，低频信息的“优先进入”有多种因素促成，包括大细胞通路的高对比度增益、自然图像的振幅谱以及平行频率调谐通道之间的抑制相互作用。低空间频率通道与全局优先顺序之间密切关系的证据是通过观察到的结果提供的，即使用由低和高频正弦波组成的模式可以获得全局优先顺序效应的基本特征。反应时间（RT）的分析支持了这样一种假设，即这些不对称干扰效应是由于平行空间通道之间的相互作用引起的，该分析表明，对冗余的低和高频线索的 RT 产生的促进作用小于假设通道独立的预测值。鉴于先前的工作表明全局优先顺序取决于刺激的低频内容，我们认为低空间频率代表了人类模式感知中结构线索优势的必要条件，而这种结构优势反映了视觉模式感知的微观发生。讨论了这种视觉模式识别的时间动态的一般观点，从进化的角度进行了考虑，并与自然场景中的某些统计规律有关。探索了赋予低分辨率信息初始处理优势的交互平行体系结构的潜在适应性优势。
