Topic: illusory contours

Perception is not a faithful representation of the sensory world; rather, it is an inference of the most likely explanation given sensory evidence. Illusions arise due to rational mistakes in perceptual inference, exemplifying the dichotomy between faithful representation and inferred representation. We utilized illusory contours to ask how and where perceptual inference is encoded in the mouse visual cortex. In illusory contour perception, the perceived whole is greater than the sum of its parts. As such, we hypothesized that brain regions encoding perceptual inference would show enhanced neu

Early perspectives on the brain's visual system suggested that it is comprised of separate information streams, each specializing in processing distinct visual features. In this scheme, neurons in lower regions conduct local analyses of image elements within their small receptive fields, while neurons in higher visual areas represent the visual scene in a more global and abstract manner (e.g., by identification and segmentation of objects). However, when processing ambiguous visual stimuli, such as those generated by Kanizsa figures, the local analysis by lower levels might be insufficient for