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Illusory contours over pathological retinal scotomas
- Source :
- PLoS ONE, Vol 6, Iss 10, p e26154 (2011), PLoS ONE
- Publication Year :
- 2011
- Publisher :
- Public Library of Science (PLoS), 2011.
-
Abstract
- Our visual percepts are not fully determined by physical stimulus inputs. Thus, in visual illusions such as the Kanizsa figure, inducers presented at the corners allow one to perceive the bounding contours of the figure in the absence of luminance-defined borders. We examined the discrimination of the curvature of these illusory contours that pass across retinal scotomas caused by macular degeneration. In contrast with previous studies with normal-sighted subjects that showed no perception of these illusory contours in the region of physiological scotomas at the optic nerve head, we demonstrated perfect discrimination of the curvature of the illusory contours over the pathological retinal scotoma. The illusion occurred despite the large scar around the macular lesion, strongly reducing discrimination of whether the inducer openings were acute or obtuse and suggesting that the coarse information in the inducers (low spatial frequency) sufficed. The result that subjective contours can pass through the pathological retinal scotoma suggests that the visual cortex, despite the loss of bottom-up input, can use low-spatial frequency information from the inducers to form a neural representation of new complex geometrical shapes inside the scotoma.
- Subjects :
- Male
Anatomy and Physiology
Non-Clinical Medicine
genetic structures
lcsh:Medicine
Social and Behavioral Sciences
STRIATE CORTEX
Pediatrics
CORTICAL MAPS
Macular Degeneration
Form perception
Sociology
Neurobiology of Disease and Regeneration
Psychophysics
PERCEPTUAL FILLING-IN
Psychology
Stargardt Disease
Macula Lutea
Scotoma
lcsh:Science
media_common
BLIND-SPOT
Multidisciplinary
Social Research
NEURAL RESPONSES
ARTIFICIAL SCOTOMAS
Blind spot
Illusions
PRIMARY VISUAL-CORTEX
medicine.anatomical_structure
Mental Health
Medicine
Female
Research Article
Social Psychology
Adolescent
media_common.quotation_subject
Illusion
Biology
Retina
Contrast Sensitivity
medicine
Illusory contours
Humans
Psychological and Psychosocial Issues
Health Care Policy
Optical illusion
lcsh:R
MACULAR DEGENERATION
eye diseases
Form Perception
Visual cortex
lcsh:Q
sense organs
Physiological Processes
Neuroscience
Photic Stimulation
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 19326203
- Volume :
- 6
- Issue :
- 10
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- PLoS ONE
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....c1e44712f885ac847313c29983dd8536