Uncertainty and inference in the visual system

Recent physiological research has indicated that the visual system makes use of units responsive to Gabor signals in the analysis of visual stimuli. Such functions effect a tradeoff between pure spatial- and frequency-domain descriptions. The authors explain the use of such representations in vision, considered as a process in inference from the retinal signals to a symbolic description. The appropriate mathematical structure for the inference is that of the subspaces of the signal vector space, a feature which it shares with quantum mechanics. The theory is derived directly from the fundamental constraints on visual inference. It is then shown to be consistent with many of the known properties of the visual system. In particular, a major feature of the inference system-the occurrence of interference effects-has already been observed in visual system operation.>