We present a striate-cortical model which proposes a direct relationship between cellular synchronization and perceptual salience. The model focuses on the role of the long-range horizontal connections between oriented simple cells in striate cortex and is able to account for current physiological and psychophysical results on contour salience. We demonstrate that horizontal connections between realistically-modeled multi-compartment pyramidal cells and interneurons can generate robust context-dependent synchronization. Closed contours induce better synchronization in the network than open contours, and closure thus increases perceptual salience, as observed psychophysically by Kovács and Julesz. This result is a general topological property of synchronization. The model supports a temporal synchronization solution to the binding problem, in that changes in synchronization are directly linked to changes in visual perception.
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