# How Does Normalization Regulate Visual Competition?

> **NIH NIH R01** · BOSTON UNIVERSITY (CHARLES RIVER CAMPUS) · 2024 · $412,500

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
How does the human visual system regulate competing sensory information? Prevailing theories propose that
a computation known as divisive normalization plays a key role in governing neural competition. Normalization
is considered a canonical neural computation, potentially driving responses throughout the brain. Interestingly,
there is evidence to suggest that normalization’s pervasive role relies on an exquisite tuning to stimulus
features, such as orientation and spatial frequency, but this feature-selective nature of normalization is
surprisingly understudied, particularly in humans. Our long-term goal is to understand the neural mechanisms
supporting vision across the visual hierarchy in humans, and to characterize how they flexibly change with
selective attention. The aim of this proposal is to employ state-of-the-art functional neuroimaging techniques
and analyses to shed light on the tuning characteristics that allow normalization to control population
responses within human visual cortex, and to understand how normalization can support selective attention.
We approach the problem by first characterizing the selective properties of normalization within early visual
cortex during normal, passive, scene viewing. We will then assess the unifying potential of models based on
divisive normalization, examining the role that normalization plays in regulating competition via spatially-
directed and feature-based attention. By revealing the role played by tuned normalization within human visual
cortex, these studies will provide the necessary framework for the development of diagnostic tools and
treatments for clinical disorders that involve deficits in central visual processing.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10774315
- **Project number:** 5R01EY028163-07
- **Recipient organization:** BOSTON UNIVERSITY (CHARLES RIVER CAMPUS)
- **Principal Investigator:** SAM LING
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $412,500
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-09-01 → 2027-02-28

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10774315

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10774315, How Does Normalization Regulate Visual Competition? (5R01EY028163-07). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10774315. Licensed CC0.

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