Temporal dynamics of binocular disparity processing in the central visual pathway

Abstract

To solve the stereo correspondence problem (i.e., find the matching features of a visual scene in both eyes), it is advantageous to combine information across spatial scales. The details of how this is accomplished are not clear. Psychophysical studies and mathematical models have suggested various types of interactions across spatial scale, including coarse to fine, fine to coarse, averaging, and population coding. In this study, we investigate dynamic changes in disparity tuning of simple and complex cells in the cat's striate cortex over a short time span. We find that disparity frequency increases and disparity ranges decrease while optimal disparity remains constant, and this conforms to a coarse-to-fine mechanism. We explore the origin of this mechanism by examining the frequency and size dynamics exhibited by binocular simple cells and neurons in the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN). The results suggest a strong role for a feed-forward mechanism, which could originate in the retina. However, we find that the dynamic changes seen in the disparity range of simple cells cannot be predicted from their left and right eye monocular receptive field (RF) size changes. This discrepancy suggests the possibility of a dynamic nonlinearity or disparity specific feedback that alters tuning or a combination of both mechanisms.