Abstract:
A laminar cortical model of stereopsis and later stages of three-dimensional surface perception is proposed and simulated. The model describes boundary and surface interactions between LGN, V1, V2, and V4, and details how the interactions between layers 4, 3B, and 2/3A in Vl and V2 contribute to stereopsis. In particular, the model clarifies how binocular and monocular information combine during binocular vision. Neural explanations are given for various psychophysical observations reported in studies on: contrast variations of dichoptic masking and the correspondence problem, da Vinci stereopsis, stereopsis with polarity-reversed stereograms, and various lightness illusions. By relating physiology to psychophysics, the model is able to provide new functional insights and predictions about laminar cortical architecture.
