A model for cell receptive fields in the visual striate cortex

Abstract

In understanding pattern analysis and image processing by the visual system we are mainly concerned with receptive field modeling of the cells in the X channel. Each of the three physiological levels of the visual pathway (retina, lateral geniculate bodies, and striate cortex) is characterized by the overlapping of cell receptive fields on the visual space. We propose a multilayer model based on this overlapping that explains the decreasing of the overlap factor and also the size constancy. Besides, a homogeneous distribution of the X-type ganglion receptive fields in each layer of our model, allows us to obtain, by a parallel and serial of cortical receptive fields of different orders. We call them sign configurations. They application of a simple transform (elementary connecting process, ECP, a systematic representation some specific properties: symmetry, orientation, periodicity, and complexity. If an inhibitory mechanism is assumed, these sign configurations can present the spatial frequency characteristics of a Fourier analyzer.