Concerning the mapping of ambiguous retinal output vectors onto unambiguous visual percepts

Summary form only given. From a systems theory and computational neuroscience perspective, the primate foveal visual system in the photopic range consists of a retina module as a large ensemble of spatio-temporal (ST) filters represented by the receptive field (RF) properties of mostly P- and Mganglion cells feeding into a corresponding central visual system module (VM). VM in turn elicits visual percepts P2 corresponding to optical input patterns P1. Human visual perception, which transcends neuroscience and biophysics, is considered here as the result of a sequence of two unidirectional mapping operations. The paper outlines a novel retina encoder (RE*) for mapping of optical patterns P1 onto vectors of ambiguous output signals; RE* serves both as retina module simulator and as neuroprosthetic retinal replacement. The paper also identifies essential requirements for the mapping of an ambiguous signal vector onto an unambiguous pattern. It also discusses perceptual consequences of a low-dimensional (e.g. 100) vector of multiple ganglion cell activity generated by RE* in blind subjects with an epiretinal, learning retina implant, vs. the high-dimensional vector of single ganglion cell activity generated by the human retina during normal vision.