A mechanism for optic nerve conduction and form perception: I

Abstract

This paper describes a mechanism for (1) bottle-neck optic nerve conduction and (2) the recognition of visual spatial forms. (1) In this mechanism thew retinal receptor neurons are in one-one causal relation to a setD ofw central neurons, the connecting optic nerve containing less thanw fibers. (2) Also a set ϕ of μ spatial forms (herein defined) is in the one-one causal relation to a setF of μ central neurons so that iff _i (any given number ofF) fires, then the correspondingφ _i has occurred in the retinal image. Onlyφ _i can firef _l , butf _l may fire for any position, size or orientation ofφ _i on the retina, with the restriction thatφ _i not be smaller than a minimum size which is a function of retinal position. Neuron economy is considered throughout.