ABSTRACT
The traditional neurological approach to visual perception assumes that an object is the result of a chain of events leading over stations in a sensory pathway. This pathway leads from retina to the lateral geniculate bodies of thalamus which relay the signal to visual (striate) cortex. Cells in the visual cortex respond to various features in the stimulus array, features which are subsequently combined to a pattern perception over the circumstriate zone. From this region connections exist to convey the information to other neocortical sites for “higher” or more complex processing. For example, there are pathways to the inferotemporal region which are thought to relate percepts to meanings, or provide a constant update of the visual environment to an experiential and/or spatial map of the world.
