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Fig. 13.10. Contour segmentation process. Input for the contour segmentation experiment consisted of two contours, diagonal and vertical, and three background elements. The same plotting conventions as in Figure 13.6 were used to illustrate the MUAs of the areas that responded to these inputs. The three bottom rows (1 to 3) correspond to the diagonal contour, the three middle rows (4 to 6) to the vertical contour, and the top three rows (7 to 9) to the background elements. The MUA sequences within each contour are synchronized. On the other hand, the MUA sequences of elements in different contours, of elements in the background, and of contour and background elements are desynchronized. In other words, the three areas representing the same contour fire together while the areas responding to the other contour and to the background are silent. Such an alternating activation of neuronal groups ensures that each coherent object is represented distinctly and not mixed with representations of other objects. An animated demo of this process can be seen at ...