The Journal of Neuroscience, January 24, 2007, 27(4):725-730; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3860-06.2007
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Brief Communications
Temporal Resolution for the Perception of Features and Conjunctions
Clara Bodelón,
Mazyar Fallah, and
John H. Reynolds
Systems Neurobiology Laboratory, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, California 92037
Correspondence should be address to Clara Bodelón, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, Systems Neurobiology Laboratory (SNL-R), 10010 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, CA 92037. Email: clara{at}salk.edu
The visual system decomposes stimuli into their constituent features, represented by neurons with different feature selectivities. How the signals carried by these feature-selective neurons are integrated into coherent object representations is unknown. To constrain the set of possible integrative mechanisms, we quantified the temporal resolution of perception for color, orientation, and conjunctions of these two features. We find that temporal resolution is measurably higher for each feature than for their conjunction, indicating that time is required to integrate features into a perceptual whole. This finding places temporal limits on the mechanisms that could mediate this form of perceptual integration.
Key words: psychophysics; temporal; integration; color; orientation; perception
Received Sept. 5, 2006;
revised Nov. 26, 2006;
accepted Nov. 28, 2006.
Correspondence should be address to Clara Bodelón, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, Systems Neurobiology Laboratory (SNL-R), 10010 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, CA 92037. Email: clara{at}salk.edu