  The face-vase illusion introduced by Rubin demonstrates how one can switch
back and forth between two different interpretations depending on how the
figure outlines are assigned [1]. This border ownership assignment is an
important step in the perception of forms. Zhou et al. [2] found neurons in the
visual cortex whose responses not only depend on the local features present in
their classical receptive fields, but also on their contextual information.
Various models proposed that feedback from higher ventral areas or lateral
connections could provide the required contextual information. However, some
studies [3, 4, 5] ruled out the plausibility of models exclusively based on
lateral connections. In addition, further evidence [6] suggests that ventral
feedback even from V4 is not fast enough to provide context to border ownership
neurons in either V1 or V2. As a result, the border ownership assignment
mechanism in the brain is a mystery yet to be solved. Here, we test with
computational simulations the hypothesis that the dorsal stream provides the
global information to border ownership cells in the ventral stream. Our
proposed model incorporates early recurrence from the dorsal pathway as well as
lateral modulations within the ventral stream. Our simulation experiments show
that our model border ownership neurons, similar to their biological
counterparts, exhibit different responses to figures on either side of the
border.
