Coherent visual perception.

The detection and recognition of visual objects is a vital skill for our interactions in the world. To achieve it, the brain has to group local image features to global meaningful objects. This perceptual organisation is a challenging operation for the visual system as objects are often camouflaged in cluttered scenes and their image properties (e.g. position, orientation, size) may change as we interact in complex environments. Our work combines behavioural and fMRI measurements to study: a) the integration of global shapes from local features, b) the construction of shape representations selective to combinations of visual features and tolerant to image changes that are critical for object recognition, and c) the role of learning in coherent shape perception. This work will advance our understanding of the link between structure, function and behaviour in the intact brain, provide new insights into the re-organisation and potential recovery of function in the impaired brain, and have potential applications in the design of rehabilitation programmes and artificial vision systems.