Perceptual processes as charting operators

Abstract

Sensory operators are classically modelled using small circuits involving canonical computations, such as energy extraction and gain control. Notwithstanding their utility, circuit models do not provide a unified framework encompassing the variety of effects observed experimentally. We develop a novel, alternative framework that recasts sensory operators in the language of intrinsic geometry. We start from a plausible representation of perceptual processes that is akin to measuring distances over a sensory manifold. We show that this representation is sufficiently expressive to capture a wide range of empirical effects associated with elementary sensory computations. The resulting geometrical framework offers a new perspective on state-of-the-art empirical descriptors of sensory behavior, such as first-order and second-order perceptual kernels. For example, it relates these descriptors to notions of flatness and curvature in perceptual space.