Biomedical subjects

J Hulleman

Publications and source records attributed to J Hulleman.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2000

Concavities as basic features in visual search: evidence from search asymmetries.

Concave cusps and negative curvature minima play an important role in many theories of visual shape perception. Cusps and minima are taken to be part boundaries, used to segment an object into parts. Because of their important role in determining object structure and because there is some evidence that object structure is processed in parallel, it might be expected that concave cusps and negative curvature minima are processed preferentially. We tested this conjecture in several visual search experiments. Visual search for a target with a concave cusp among totally convex distractors yields nearly flat slopes (< 10 msec/item) for both present and absent trials. Reversing the roles of the target and the distractor results in inefficient search. The same asymmetry is found when the concave cusp is replaced by other types of concavity. We conclude, therefore, the concavities can serve as basic features in visual search experiments. This conclusion implies that the unit of selection in a visual search task is an object, rather than a location.

Female↗

PubMed1999

Perceived shape regularity does not depend on regularities along the contour.

In four experiments we investigated whether human observers are able to use certain regularities in polygons when they have to indicate which polygon they perceive as the more regular in a paired comparison task. From our results we conclude that regularities that are restricted to the contour do not play a role in judgments of regularity. For instance, equilateral polygons are not considered to be more regular than entirely random polygons. Only bilaterally symmetric polygons are consistently judged as regular. However, we show that this is caused by regularities across the polygon. These results are at odds with approaches that assume that regularities along the contour play an important part in visual perception.

Adult↗

PubMed1996

Gain control and hyperpolarization level in cat horizontal cells as a function of light and dark adaptation.

First a model is presented that accurately summarizes the dynamic properties of cat horizontal (H-) cells under photopic conditions as measured in our previous work. The model predicts that asymmetries in response to dark as compared to light flashes are flash-duration dependent. This somewhat surprising prediction is tested and confirmed in intracellular recordings from the optically intact in vivo eye of the cat (Experiment 1). The model implies that the gain of H-cells should be related rather directly to the sustained (baseline) membrane potential. We performed three additional experiments to test this idea. Experiment 2 concerns response vs intensity (R-I-) curves for various flash-diameters and background-sizes with background luminance varying over a 4 log unit range. Results support the assumption of a rather strict coupling between flash sensitivity (gain) and the sustained level of hyperpolarization. In Experiment 3 we investigate this relation for both dark and light flashes given on each of four background light levels. The results suggest that there are fixed minimum and maximum hyperpolarization levels, and that the baseline hyperpolarization for a given illumination thus also sets the available range for dark and light flash-responses. The question then arises whether, or how this changes during dark adaptation, when the rod contribution to H-cell responses gradually increases. The fourth experiment therefore studies the relationship between gain and hyperpolarization level during prolonged dark-adaptation. The results show that the rod contribution increases the polarization range of H-cells, but that the gain and polarization level nevertheless remain directly coupled. H-cell models relying on a close coupling between polarization level and gain thus remain attractive options.

Adaptation, Ocular↗

PubMed1993

Selective adaptation of internally triggered saccades made to visual targets.

We examined whether internally triggered saccades made to a nonjumping target (I-saccades) could be adapted independently from externally triggered saccades induced by a jumping target (E-saccades). Five subjects made I-saccades between two fixed targets, one placed straight ahead and the other one positioned at an eccentricity of 17.5 degrees. The peripheral target was displaced to an eccentricity of 8.75 degrees during the saccadic movements toward this target. Amplitudes of the I-saccades made from the central to the peripheral target before and after adaptation were compared with each other. Saccadic amplitudes after adaptation were between 10% and 42% smaller than those before adaptation. E-saccades induced by a single target which jumped from straight ahead to the same peripheral target position as was used for the I-saccades were also measured before and after the adaptation of I-saccades. Amplitudes of E-saccades before and after adaptation were hardly different from each other except in one subject. The mean decreases in amplitude of the two types of saccades, averaged over all subjects, were 21% for I-saccades and 5% for E-saccades. These results show that I-saccades can be adapted to changed visual conditions while E-saccades remain unadapted. We conclude from this finding that I-saccades and E-saccades are generated by at least partially different neural mechanisms.

Adaptation, Physiological↗