2019 Conference on Cognitive Computational Neuroscience

13-16 September 2019    Berlin, Germany

Technical Program

Paper Detail

Paper: PS-1B.52
Session: Poster Session 1B
Location: H Fläche 1.OG
Session Time: Saturday, September 14, 16:30 - 19:30
Presentation Time:Saturday, September 14, 16:30 - 19:30
Presentation: Poster
Publication: 2019 Conference on Cognitive Computational Neuroscience, 13-16 September 2019, Berlin, Germany
Paper Title: Models of allocentric coding for reaching in naturalistic visual scenes
Manuscript:  Click here to view manuscript
License: Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.32470/CCN.2019.1372-0
Authors: Parisa Abedi Khoozani, Queen's University, Canada; Paul R. Schrater, University of Minnesota, United States; Dominik Endres, Philipps-University Marburg, Germany; Katja Fiehler, Justus-Liebig Univ. Giessen, Germany; Gunnar Blohm, Queen's University, Canada
Abstract: To reach to objects, humans rely on relative positions of target objects to surrounding objects (allocentric) as well as to their own bodies (egocentric). Previous studies demonstrated that scene configuration and object relevancy to the task modulates the combination weights of allocentric and egocentric information. Egocentric coding for reaching is studied extensively; however, how allocentric information is coupled and used in reaching is unknown. Using a computational approach, we show that clustering mechanisms for allocentric coding combined with causal Bayesian integration of allocentric and egocentric information can account for the observed reaching behavior. To further understand allocentric coding, we propose two strategies, global vs. distributed landmark clustering (GLC vs. DLC). Both models can replicate the current data but each has distinct implications. GLC efficiently encodes the scene relative to a single virtual reference but loses all the local structure information. In contrary, DLC stores more redundant inter-object relationship information. Consequently, DLC is more sensitive to the changes of the scene. Further experiments must differentiate between the two proposed strategies.