Researchers studied the neural process in the brain that allows people to recognize familiar images even when they are blurry. They discovered that after repeated exposures, the number of neurons responding to low-contrast visual stimuli rather than high-contrast visual stimuli increased in rats undertaking a visual orientation discrimination test.
In correct-choice trials, these neurons were more active than in incorrect-choice trials. Low-contrast stimulations were well reflected by these neurons. As a result, V1 activity’s low-contrast preference could help with low-contrast vision.
Emotions are known to have numerous processing stages, including appraisal, reaction, and feeling, and are regarded to fulfill evolutionarily adapted tasks. The amygdala, superior temporal sulcus, somatosensory cortex, and ventral striatum are only a few of the numerous types of emotional appraisals and associated appraisal regions/networks in the brain.
There are also a variety of emotional reactions, such as increased sensitivity to and recollection of emotional stimuli/events. Objects’ appearances change frequently. The contrast of things, for example, reduces in dull evenings or fog, making it difficult to detect them.
This flexible information representation may enable a consistent perception of familiar objects with any contrast. The flexibility of our brain makes our sensation effective, although you may not be aware of it. An artificial neural network model may reproduce the human sensation by incorporating not only high contrast-preferring neurons, generally considered until now, but also low contrast-preferring neurons, the main focus of this research.
Rie Kimura
The brain, on the other hand, can recognize certain objects after repeated encounters, even if they grow blurry. The specific mechanism that contributes to low-contrast familiar object perception is uncertain.
To summarize, emotion is not a single mechanism, nor is the emotional brain a single location. Emotions, on the other hand, are multistage complicated phenomena, and brain representation is distributed and related to the stage of emotional processing.
Visual responses have been thought to directly reflect the strength of external inputs in the primary visual cortex (V1), the part of the cerebral cortex dedicated to processing basic visual information. As a result, visual stimuli with great contrast generate powerful responses and vice versa.
Rie Kimura and Yumiko Yoshimura discovered that following repeated exposures, the number of V1 neurons selectively reacting to low-contrast stimuli rises in rats.
Low-contrast visual stimuli produce stronger responses in these neurons, while high-contrast stimuli elicit weaker responses. When rats properly detect a low-contrast familiar item, these low-contrast-preferring neurons become more active.
Low-contrast preference in V1 is enhanced in an experience-dependent manner to represent low-contrast visual information well, according to a study published in Science Advances. This technique may aid in the perception of familiar items, even if they are blurry.
“This flexible information representation may enable a consistent perception of familiar objects with any contrast,” Kimura says.
“The flexibility of our brain makes our sensation effective, although you may not be aware of it. An artificial neural network model may reproduce the human sensation by incorporating not only high contrast-preferring neurons, generally considered until now, but also low contrast-preferring neurons, the main focus of this research.”
