A NEURAL THEORY OF ATTENTIVE VISUAL-SEARCH - INTERACTIONS OF BOUNDARY, SURFACE, SPATIAL, AND OBJECT REPRESENTATIONS

Visual search data are given a unified quantitative explanation by a m odel of how spatial maps in the parietal cortex and object recognition categories in the inferotemporal cortex deploy attentional resources as they reciprocally interact with visual representations in the prest riate cortex. The model visual representations are organized into mult iple boundary and surface representations. Visual search in the model is initiated by organizing multiple items that lie within a given boun dary or surface representation into a candidate search grouping. These items are compared with object recognition categories to test for mat ches or mismatches. Mismatches can trigger deeper searches and recursi ve selection of new groupings until a target object is identified. The model provides an alternative to Feature Integration and Guided Searc h models.