Isodipole Textures and Structural Continuity: fMRI

Striate cortex in humans demonstrates relationship between activation and variations in visual form

Beason-Held, L.L., Purpura, K.P., Krasuski, J.S., Desmond, R.E., Mangot, D.J., Daly, E.M., Optican, L.M., Rapoport, S.I., and Van Meter, J.W.

Experimental Brain Research 130, 221-226 (2000)

Abstract

Electrophysiologic and functional imaging studies have shown that the visual cortex produces differential responses to the presence or absence of structure within visual textures. To further define and characterize regions involved in the analysis of form, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to detect changes in activation during the viewing of four levels of isodipole textures. The texture levels systematically differed in the density of visual features such as extended contours and blocks solid color present within the images. A linear relationship between activation level and density of structure was observed in the striate cortex of human subjects. This finding suggests that a special subpopulation of striate cortical neurons participates in the ability to extract and process structural continuity within visual stimuli.

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Isodipole textures: generic examples, background and examples of decorrelated textures