Colloquium
Time: 11:00am, Oct 14, 2025
Venue: Lecture Hall, Shanghai Brain Center
Speaker: Prof. Zhaoping Li
Professor, University of Tuebingen, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tuebingen, Germany
Host：Prof. Nikos Logothetis
Biography: CV.pdf
Abstract:
The central-peripheral dichotomy (CPD) theory states: the peripheral visual field is mainly for looking (shifts gaze and attention), the central visual field is mainly for seeing (recognition/discrimination), and that top-down feedback along the (ventral) visual pathway to aid recognition is mainly directed to the central visual field. This CPD theory (Zhaoping 2017, 2019) is motivated by the fact that visual attention selects only a tiny fraction of visual input information for further processing, and by the evidence backed V1 Saliency hypothesis (V1SH), which states that the primary visual cortex (V1) creates a bottom-up saliency map to guide the fovea/attention to selected visual locations via gaze shifts. Hence, selection is hypothesized to start from V1 to downstream areas, and there is a massive loss of non-selected information from V1 downstream along the visual pathway. The CPD theory predicts that non-foveal vision is not only poorer in spatial resolution, but also more susceptible to many illusions. The predictions of the CPD theory include: (1) two new illusions that are normally only visible in the peripheral visual field, (2) these illusions become visible in the central visual field when the topdown feedback is disabled, and (3) top-down feedback to aid seeing is mainly directed to the central visual field. Experimental tests of the predictions will be presented. Implications for understanding vision and brain will be discussed.