Contour Integration Based on Synchronization Mediated by Self-Organized Lateral Connections

Contour integration is believed to occur based on lateral interaction between neurons with similar orientation tuning. The exact neural mechanisms underlying such interactions, and their developmental origins, are not well understood. This paper suggests through computational simulations that synchronization mediated by patchy lateral connections, formed through input-driven self-organization, can serve as such a mechanism. Furthermore, such patchy connections may explain why different areas of the visual field show different degrees of contour integration in psychophysical experiments. 1 Introduction Contour integration means forming a single coherent percept (i.e. a continuous contour) from a discontinuous sequence of line segments. Psychophysical experiments (Field et al. 1993; Pettet et al. 1998) and computational models (Yen and Finkel 1997; Li 1998; Yen and Finkel 1999) suggest that contour integration in the visual cortex may be due to interaction of neurons with similar orien..