中華心理學刊 民100，53卷，4期，413-420
Chinese Journal of Psychology 2011, Vol.53, No.4, 413-420

Hidehiko Komatsu（Division of Sensory and Cognitive Information, National Institute for Physiological Sciences；Department of Physiological Sciences, The Graduate University for Advanced Studies (SOKENDAI)）

Abstract

No retinal input exists at the blind spot (BS). However, we do not perceive a hole in the visual field. Instead, within the BS, we perceive the same color, contour or texture as the stimuli surrounding the BS. This is called perceptual fillingin or completion at the BS. Filling-in and completion occurs not only at the BS but also in the retinal scotoma and in various phenomena in the normal visual field. This suggests that there are some mechanisms in our visual system that could interpolate incomplete retinal signals to form contiguous surface and contour. To elucidate the role of the primary visual cortex (V1) in perceptual filling-in and completion, we analyzed neural responses at the retinotopic representation of the BS in macaque V1. We addressed two questions: (1) Do V1 neurons respond to stimuli inducing filling-in or completion even though there is no direct retinal input to this region? (2) Do the responses of V1 neurons to such stimuli correlate with perception? We found that the answers to both of the above questions are 'yes.' Our results suggest that V1 plays an important role in the occurrence of filling-in and completion at the BS.

Keywords: blind spot, completion, filling-in, monkey, primary visual cortex (V1)