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Study helps unlock how the brain sees

brown eye closeup

Scientists believe people recognise objects by gathering a host of different snapshots over a short period of time (Source: iStockphoto)

Scientists who tricked monkeys by swapping images of sailboats for teacups have figured out how the brain learns to recognise objects, a finding that could lead to robots that see.

"One of the central questions of how the brain recognises objects and faces is that you never essentially see the same image twice," says James DiCarlo, an associate professor of neuroscience at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He says humans have no trouble recognising a dog, regardless of whether it is running, lying down, wagging its tail or begging for food.

"The pattern of light in your eyes is never the same when you view your wife or your dog, yet you can still recognise that as the person or creature that you love," says DiCarlo, whose research appears in the journal Science.

Scientists believe people do it by gathering a host of different snapshots of the same object over a short period of time.

"Even though we don't see the same images twice, nearby images in time tend to be images of the same object," says DiCarlo.

To test this idea, DiCarlo set up an experiment with two monkeys in which the scientists tried to trick them into unlearning their assumptions about an object.

Slight of hand

The researchers attached electrodes to the parts of the brain responsible for recognising objects. They specifically were testing changes in neurons that recognise images of a sailboat.

The monkeys were given treats if they looked at a video screen that contained several different pictures of a sailboat.

Occasionally, when they looked away, the researchers switched one of the sailboat pictures for an image of a teacup, but only in one spot.

Eventually, some of the neurons in the monkeys' brains responsible for sailboat images responded to a teacup instead.

DiCarlo says the study in monkeys follows a similar experiment in humans and suggests this is likely how people learn to categorise and recognise objects they see.

He said the finding opens a window into the visual learning system and will help researchers as they attempt to build computers with vision-like systems.

"There's a lot of tasks that are essentially mindless for humans, but that only humans can do," DiCarlo says, such as inspecting things on assembly lines, searching for explosive devices and looking at radiology images.

Tags: neuroscience, robots-and-artificial-intelligence, brain-and-nervous-system