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Volume 16, Number 22,
Issue of November 15, 1996
pp. 7376-7389
Copyright ©1996 Society for Neuroscience
Contextual Modulation in Primary Visual Cortex
Karl Zipser1,
Victor A. F. Lamme2, and
Peter H. Schiller1
1 The Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, and 2 Graduate School of Neurosciences, Department of
Medical Physics, AMC, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The
Netherlands, and The Netherlands Ophthalmic Research Institute, 1100 AC
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION
MATERIALS AND METHODS
RESULTS
DISCUSSION
FOOTNOTES
REFERENCES
ABSTRACT
We studied extra-receptive field contextual modulation in area V1
of awake, behaving macaque monkeys. Contextual modulation was studied
using texture displays in which texture covering the receptive field
(RF) was the same in all trials, but the perceptual context of this
texture could vary depending on the configuration of extra-RF texture
elements. We found robust contextual modulation when disparity, color,
luminance, and orientation cues variously defined a textured figure
centered on the RF of V1 neurons. We found contextual modulation to
have a spatial extent of ~8 to 10° diameter parafoveally.
Contextual modulation correlated with perceptual experience of both
binocularly rivalrous texture displays and of displays with a simple
example of surface occlusion. We found contextual modulation in V1 to
have a characteristic latency of 80-100 msec after stimulus onset,
potentially allowing feedback from extrastriate areas to underlie to
this effect.
Key words:
figure-ground segregation;
surface perception;
primary
visual cortex;
awake macaque monkey;
single-unit activity;
texture;
visual perception;
context modulation;
nonclassical receptive field
INTRODUCTION
Neurophysiological research in primary visual
cortex (area V1) has focused primarily on elucidating the
characteristics of the receptive fields (RFs) of the neurons in this
brain area. The RF of a visual neuron is the restricted region of the
visual field in which an appropriate stimulus, such as an oriented bar
or a patch of texture, may drive the cell to evoke action-potential
responses. Yet the activity of V1 neurons evoked in this manner may be
modulated by stimuli placed entirely outside the RF
(Blakemore and Tobin, 1972
; Maffei and Fiorentini, 1976
; Nelson and
Frost, 1978
; Gilbert and Wiesel, 1990
; Knierim and van Essen, 1992
;
Sillito et al., 1995
). We call this general phenomenon extra-RF
contextual modulation. Presumably extra-RF contextual modulation
allows neurons to signal some form of comparison between the patterns
inside and outside the RF (Allman et al., 1985
). But the essential
characteristics of extra-RF modulation, and the type of comparison that
it may support, remain largely a mystery.
Although not well characterized, the modulatory influence of stimuli
placed outside the RF of the V1 neuron constitutes a powerful force in
primary visual cortex. A dramatic demonstration of this comes from
Lamme (1995)
, who recorded activity of V1 neurons in awake, behaving
monkeys during viewing of textured displays. Lamme used textured
stimuli configured such that the RF of a V1 neuron under study received
an identical pattern of stimulation from trial to trial. Despite this
identical RF stimulation, V1 cells almost always responded more
vigorously in trials in which the orientation, or motion, of the
texture pattern on the RF belonged to a circumscribed ``figure''
(such as the square in Fig. 1a), as compared
with trials in which texture was of a homogeneous type across the
entire display (Fig. 1b).
Fig. 1.
Example texture displays. a,
Illustration of an orientation-defined figure. b,
Illustration of a homogeneous texture display. Texture in the center of
the orientation-defined figure is identical to texture at the
corresponding position in the homogeneous texture display. Typically,
the luminance of the gray background was 24 cd/m2 and that
of the black bars was 6 cd/m2, although we saw no evidence
that a particular contrast was critical. Furthermore, our results do
not seem to depend on the exact texture distribution. Nonetheless, we
generally used texture bars 0.5° in length with the pattern
illustrated in this figure. The gray between texture bars was the same
as the gray that covered the screen in the intertrial period.
[View Larger Version of this Image (62K GIF file)]
Lamme's experiments suggest that extra-RF contextual modulation
constitutes as robust a feature of V1 neural function as the
long-studied RF properties of cells in this area, such as orientation
tuning (Hubel and Wiesel, 1968
). Yet before we may integrate contextual
modulation into a comprehensive model of the function of area V1, we
must have a better understanding of the basic characteristics of this
phenomenon and of the goals that it is designed to accomplish. A key
question is whether contextual modulation in area V1 reflects a
sophisticated neural correlate of perception or, rather, whether it
merely reflects low-level image processing only distantly related to
visual awareness. If extra-RF contextual modulation in area V1 closely
relates to perception, then this modulation should correlate with
perceptual experience under a wide range of stimulus conditions. On the
other hand, to the extent that contextual modulation is a low-level
phenomenon, it should be relatively easy to dissociate from perceptual
experience. We report here results of neurophysiological experiments
that we conducted on area V1 of awake, behaving monkeys to attempt to
distinguish between these possible functions of contextual modulation.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Experiments were performed on four male Macaca
mulatta, each weighing 8-10 kg. Before surgery, monkeys were
trained to jump into their primate chairs and were habituated to the
laboratory environment. Subsequently, each animal underwent surgical
procedures for implantation of a stainless steel cranial post for
fixing the position of the head. In the same operation, we implanted
the given animal with a scleral coil for monitoring eye position. All
surgical procedures were performed using sterile techniques, with
monkeys under deep pentobarbital anesthesia; all experimental
procedures were performed in accordance with National Institutes of
Health guidelines.
After recovery from surgery, monkeys were water-deprived and brought to
the laboratory for training. We used a PDP-11/37 computer to regulate
and monitor the monkey's behavioral tasks, to collect behavioral and
neurophysiological data, and to signal an IBM PC for control of visual
stimulation. With its head restrained in the primate chair facing a
computer graphics monitor, each monkey was trained to fixate a small
luminous spot on the screen and then to make a saccadic eye movement to
a luminous target stimulus that appeared in a random position when the
fixation spot was extinguished. Analog x and y
eye position signals, measured using the scleral coil (Robinson, 1963
),
were collected at 200 Hz and digitized with a precision of 0.01° of
visual angle. For maintaining fixation and then making the correct
saccades, the monkey was rewarded automatically with a drop of apple
juice. During training and recording, animals drank a total of 300-500
ml of juice (during 1500 or more trials) per session. Additional
rewards of peanuts and fresh fruit were provided once the animals
returned to their home cages at the end of the day.
Stimuli were presented on an NEC multisync XL color video display unit,
driven by a Number Nine Corporation graphics board with 640 × 480 pixel resolution and a frame rate of 60 Hz. The screen was 32 cm wide
and 24 cm high and was viewed at either a 57 or 63 cm distance. In
experiments that did not require stereoscopic stimuli, various texture
displays covered the entire screen. In experiments that required
stereoscopic stimuli, stereo images were displayed side by side on the
screen. In this case, all stimuli in each image appeared within a
9 × 9° thin white frame, which remained visible at all times to
facilitate fusion of the stimuli. In these experiments, monkeys viewed
the screen through a prism haptoscope that allowed the horizontally
displaced stereo images to be fused at a comfortable vergence
angle.
For human observers (with a separate prism haptoscope for human use),
our disparity-defined texture stimuli produced a rich percept of
surfaces in depth. Monkey binocular vision is very similar to that of
human beings (Bough, 1970
; Cowey et al., 1975
; Sarmiento, 1975
; Miezin
et al., 1981
; Harwerth et al., 1995
; Leopold and Logothetis, 1996
), and
we presume that with appropriate presentation, the display should have
the same richness for monkeys as it does for human observers. A
characteristic of binocular image fusion is that sensitivity to
binocular disparity is best at the fusion depth (i.e., on the horoptor)
and declines approximately symmetrically for near and far disparities
(Tyler, 1983
). In psychophysical tests of our monkeys' ability to
detect targets defined through binocular disparity, we found exactly
this pattern. Monkeys could effortlessly detect a 0.09° horizontal
binocular disparity offset of a textured target from a similarly
textured background near the horoptor but had decreasing sensitivity to
this same offset if target and background appeared at increasingly near
or far disparities. This pattern of behavior would not be expected if
monkeys failed to fuse the stereo images.
Monkeys initially trained to detect salient orientation-defined texture
targets mastered the easier levels of the horizontal disparity
texture-target-detection task with no special training. In contrast,
when targets were made visible by vertical disparity, monkeys did not
transfer easily to this task. Monkeys also could not detect the target
defined by binocular disparity when presented with a monocular image.
From the combination of these results, it is reasonable to deduce that
the monkey's perception of disparity-defined textures in our
experiments is similar to that of human observers.
Neurophysiological recording techniques. Neural recordings
in awake monkeys were made through a surgically implanted cylindrical
stainless steel electrode chamber (16 mm diameter) overlaying the
operculum of area 17. Recording began at least 3 d after surgical
implantation of the recording well. Microelectrodes were inserted via
the oil-filled, hydraulically closed electrode chamber, through the
intact dura, and into occipital cortex. Activity from single cells or
clusters of cells was recorded extracellularly with glass-coated
platinum-iridium microelectrodes of 0.5-2.0 M
impedance (measured
at 1000 Hz). The RFs of V1 neurons thus studied were in the lower
contralateral visual field with eccentricities between 2 and 6°. To
help ensure that our microelectrodes remained in area V1, the RF
positions of neurons recorded in each experiment were represented on a
graph (maintained for each monkey) that allowed us to observe the
orderly retinotopic mapping of the visual field onto striate cortex.
Neural recording was principally conducted in superficial cortical
layers 2 and 3, judging by microelectrode depth and the characteristic
features of deeper input layer 4 (e.g., high spontaneous activity,
brisk on and off responses, high degree of monocularity).
Within 3 weeks of insertion of the electrode chamber, the dura mater
hardened and became covered with an epithelium up to 6 mm thick. Such
tissue barriers caused difficulty with recording, because
microelectrodes tended to break before entering the cortex and, more
importantly, because moving the microelectrode through these tissues
could cause displacement of the brain. We found the latter effect to be
highly deleterious to the expression of extra-RF contextual modulation,
perhaps because the physical displacement generally depressed neural
activity or perhaps because it specifically compressed feedback fibers
in layer 1. We took three measures to counter this problem. First, the
supra-dural epithelium was thinned through gentle aspiration (performed
with the monkey under ketamine anesthesia). Second, we interspersed
week-long breaks from recording between each week of experimentation,
because we found that this kept the dura from hardening to such an
extent that recording became difficult. Third, to avoid brain
displacement, we moved the microelectrode through the supra-dural
epithelium and the dura with the following pattern: a quick advance of
about 10 µm, followed by a brief pause, followed by another advance,
etc. In this way, we avoided building mechanical pressure on the brain.
The average rate at which we lowered the microelectrodes was ~1 cm
per hour.
Plotting of RFs. To plot the extent of the RF of a V1 neuron
under study, we moved computer graphics-generated bars of variable size
and orientation over the neighborhood of the RF as the monkey fixated.
We initially drew RF boundaries by hand with felt-tip markers on an
auxiliary stimulus monitor while we simultaneously watched the moving
bar stimulus and monitored the evoked neural activity with an audio
amplifier. After this, we tested our estimate of RF dimensions by
flashing bars and textures inside and outside this area. We confirmed
the reliability of our RF plotting techniques by flashing texture
stimuli in a region surrounding the measured RF while leaving the RF
unstimulated. Whereas neurons responded vigorously to direct RF
stimulation, stimulation with surrounding texture evoked at best an
extremely weak response (see Results, Fig.
2d). Our RF plotting techniques thus were
adequate to allow us to isolate extra-RF stimulation from direct RF
stimulation.
Fig. 2.
Extra-RF contextual modulation for
orientation-defined texture figures. a, Configuration of
the fixation spot, figure, and RF. The RF is completely enclosed by the
figure contour. b, Illustration of the response of a
multiunit site to stimulation with the homogeneously textured display
flashed on a gray background for 267 msec. c,
Illustration of the response of the same site when a 3.6° wide
orientation-defined figure was flashed on in randomly interleaved
trials. The initial response is nearly identical, but the tonic phase
of the response is elevated in this condition compared with
b. The response profile for the homogeneous texture
display is shown in composite for comparison (fine-line
waveform), and gray shading highlights the
positive difference in response. d, Comparison of the
average responses of all 75 recording sites for which we have
quantitative data for stimulation both with RF texture
and with extra-RF texture alone. Extra-RF texture alone
gave at best an extremely weak response. e, Histogram of
extra-RF contextual modulation ratios for the orientation display. This
ratio is defined by the average response to the figure display divided
by average response to the homogeneous texture display. Average
response rates were measured in the interval of 100-250 msec after
stimulus onset (thereby ignoring the initial transient response). Ratio
values > 1.0 indicate larger responses to figure displays. Single- and
multiunit sites were qualitatively and quantitatively similar (see text
for details).
[View Larger Version of this Image (35K GIF file)]
Texture experiments. We studied each V1 neuron with static,
flashed texture displays that contained the same stimulus pattern in
the region over the RF from trial to trial. Texture over the RF
consisted of black bars on a gray background; the gray between texture
bars was the same as the gray that covered the screen in the intertrial
period. In some trials, the display appeared as a homogeneously
textured field (e.g., Fig. 1b). In other randomly
interleaved trials, the display appeared to have a textured figure
(e.g., Fig. 1a) centered on and completely covering the RF.
Although various visual cues were used in our experiments to segment
the texture figures from their backgrounds, texture within the figure
was identical to that in the corresponding region of the homogeneous
texture display. Details concerning particular texture displays are
presented in the accompanying figure legends.
We used two types of homogeneous texture display in our experiments.
The first type was a true homogeneously texture display, as illustrated
in Figure 1b. We also used a pseudo-homogeneous texture
display constructed, for example, by pairing a textured figure with a
background texture of the same orientation. The line terminations
formed by the figure contour in the pseudo-homogeneous display served
as a control against the possibility that similar line terminations in
other displays could be the source of the extra-RF contextual
modulation that we investigated. In practice, differences between these
two types of texture display are only visible under careful foveal
inspection. With control experiments on 53 multiunit recording sites,
we found that V1 neurons generally produced indistinguishable responses
to the two types of homogeneous texture display when the RF is placed
well within the ``figure'' contour. The median ratio of response to
true- and pseudo-homogeneous texture displays was 1.01. Furthermore,
responses to the two display types were significantly different in only
13% of the 53 sites (p < 0.05, two-sided
t test), and these differences were small. For simplicity,
we will ignore the distinction between the true- and the
pseudo-homogeneous texture displays in the remainder of this
report.
The temporal progression of a behavioral trial for most of our texture
experiments was as follows. At the beginning of a trial, a fixation
spot appeared on the gray monitor screen, and the monkey foveated this
spot. Approximately 200 msec after foveation of the spot occurred, a
texture display appeared on the screen for a fixed interval (e.g., 250 msec in some experiments), after which the screen returned to the
prestimulus gray. Approximately 200 msec after the texture offset, the
fixation spot was extinguished, and a target spot appeared in a random
position around the fixation spot. The monkey was rewarded with a drop
of apple juice for maintaining stable fixation throughout the trial and
then making a saccade to this target. In an alternative experimental
paradigm, the monkey was required to saccade to a texture-defined
stimulus (either over the RF or in the opposite hemifield) after the
extinguishing of the fixation spot. Operationally, stable fixation
meant that the monkey's eye position remained within a fixation window
(not visible in the stimulus display) that was centered on the fixation
spot. The fixation window size varied from 1° × 1° to
0.3° × 0.3°; the typical value was 0.5° × 0.5°.
Given that the results in this study are based on comparison of neural
responses in trials in which the texture display was either homogeneous
or contained a salient textured figure, it is of considerable
importance to determine whether the presence of the figure in the
flashed texture display could subtly influence eye movements that
might, in turn, alter neural responses. We addressed this topic
quantitatively by selecting recordings in which neural responses showed
strong modulation depending on whether the texture display was of the
homogeneous type or contained a texture-defined figure in randomly
interleaved trials. For each trial, the mean and variance in both
x and y eye position was measured during the
texture display interval. The distributions of these mean and variance
measures were indistinguishable for the homogeneous and nonhomogeneous
texture displays; separate
2 tests for x and
y values fail to reject the null hypothesis that the content
of the texture display has no influence on mean or variance of eye
position during fixation. From these results [which agree with an
analysis by Lamme (1995)
], we conclude that our observations of
modulation of neural activity described here are not an artifact of eye
movements.
Data collection and analysis. Neural spike data were
collected using either hardware and software from a Brainwave Systems
Corporation data collection setup or a simple two-level spike amplitude
discriminator. Data files containing spike, event, and eye position
information were saved on an IBM PC (486) in binary form and converted
to ASCII for analysis on UNIX and Macintosh computer systems. Data
analysis was conducted using a combination of our own C++ analysis
routines and commercially available software (i.e., Mathematica and
MATLAB).
RESULTS
Here, we present the results of neural recordings in area V1 in
six hemispheres of four awake, behaving rhesus monkeys. Our
quantitative data consist of findings from experiments on 118 isolated
V1 neurons and 228 multiunit sites (in which inseparable signals from
two or more cells were recorded simultaneously). As we will describe in
reference to Figure 2, single- and multiunit sites behaved similarly in
our experiments. Thus, we will not generally be concerned with the
distinction between single- and multiunit sites except where the cue
receptivity of individual neurons is of interest. We recorded
principally in superficial layers 2 and 3. The V1 cells that we studied
had RFs in the lower, contralateral visual field with eccentricities
ranging from 2 to 6° of visual angle.
We use the expression extra-RF contextual modulation (or
``contextual modulation'' for short) to describe how a neuron's
response to direct RF stimulation may be influenced by patterns
appearing entirely outside the RF. The technique common to our
experiments on V1 contextual modulation consists of measuring the
response of a given V1 neuron or multiunit site to a homogeneous
texture display (e.g., Fig. 1b) and using this as a standard
against which to compare the responses of the same cell or multisite to
various test displays containing an identical texture pattern over the
RF and different patterns outside the RF area. For example, Figure
1a shows a textured display containing a square ``figure''
region that segments from the background through the 90° difference
in orientation of texture elements between these two regions. In our
experiments, we positioned the figure so that it was centered on and
completely covered the RF of V1 neurons under study (e.g., Fig.
2a). In the absence of any sort of extra-RF contextual
modulation, V1 neurons would respond identically to these displays.
Figure 2, b and c, compares the response activity
of one V1 multiunit site to the homogeneous texture and to the
orientation-defined figure displays. As a monkey foveated the fixation
spot on a gray computer monitor screen, a given texture display
appeared for 267 msec. The V1 multiunit site showed little activity for
the uniform gray display but responded to the appearance of the
homogeneous texture display with a vigorous burst of action potentials
(Fig. 2b). After this initial burst, the cells'
responses declined to a lower maintained discharge rate. When we
stimulated this site with the orientation-defined texture figure (width
3.6°) in randomly interleaved trials, we recorded different results
(Fig. 2c). Although the neurons responded to the
onset of the figure display with nearly the same burst of activity as
to the homogeneous texture display, the response rates diverged ~80
msec subsequent to texture onset. Despite the fact that texture within
the RF was identical to that for the homogeneous texture display, the
orientation-defined figure display thereafter caused the cells of the
multiunit site to maintain a significantly (p < 0.05, one-sided t test) more vigorous response rate than did
the homogeneous texture display (as is indicated by the gray
shading of response profile in Fig. 2c).
Extra-RF texture alone did not appreciably activate the V1 neurons
(Fig. 2d).
The difference in responses of the V1 multiunit site for the
homogeneous texture display and the orientation-defined figure display
is an example of extra-RF contextual modulation. We quantify this
contextual modulation by calculating a ratio, the average response rate
for the test display (in this case, the orientation-defined figure)
divided by the average response to the homogeneous texture display.
Because contextual modulation typically evolves only after the initial
transient response, throughout this study we will only consider
activity 100-250 msec after stimulus onset in our ratio metric.
Applying this ratio measure to a large sample of V1 recordings
(n = 92 single-unit and 48 multiunit sites) with RFs
centered in either a square or disc-shaped orientation-defined figure
of width 2.7-4°, we arrive at the histogram in Figure 2e.
For each cell or multiunit site, we chose the orientation of RF texture
best suited for the cell. These data replicate the observation by Lamme
(1995)
that V1 neurons with remarkable consistency respond more
vigorously when their RFs are within an orientation-defined figure than
when over a homogeneously textured background (i.e., most entries in
the histogram are above the ratio value 1.0). Single-unit and multiunit
sites were qualitatively and quantitatively similar in behavior. The
median contextual modulation ratio for the 92 single-unit sites was
1.61, whereas for the 48 multiunit sites it was 1.53. Furthermore, the
hypothesis of independence between the distributions of contextual
modulation ratios for single- and multiunit sites was rejected by a
2 test. Forty-five percent of the single units and 57%
of the multiunit sites showed significantly greater response rates to
the orientation-defined display as compared with the homogeneous
texture display (p < 0.05, one-sided
t test).
The basic pattern of neural response that we have described above was
observed whether the experimental subjects were required merely to
passively fixate (the normal condition) or to make saccades to texture
figures; thus, we replicated Lamme's result (1995). It is therefore
unlikely that the results we report are merely an indirect result of
modulation by visual attention, because the effects do not appear to
depend on the behavioral task being performed by the monkey subjects.
Do diverse visual cues evoke extra-RF modulation?
Lamme's original experiments (1995) showed that both orientation-
and motion-defined figures may evoke contextual modulation in V1. If
extra-RF contextual modulation is closely related to our perception of
figure/ground segregation, then this modulation should indeed be evoked
by the same broad range of cues that support image segmentation. In
this section, we specifically address the question: what is the range
of static visual cues that evoke extra-RF contextual modulation in V1
neurons? The different cues that we use to delineate a texture figure
from the background texture are illustrated in the left column of
Figure 3.
Fig. 3.
Extra-RF contextual modulation for diverse
figure-defining cues. The responses of one isolated parafoveal V1
neuron (cell a) are illustrated in this figure;
quantitative description of this cell's responses appears in Figure 5.
a, Illustration of the responses to the homogeneous
texture display. In each of the following conditions
(b-f), the pattern and disparity
of RF texture were identical to that in the corresponding region of the
homogeneous texture display. b, Illustration of the
response when the RF is centered in a texture figure 3.6° wide,
defined by binocular disparity. The disc figure appeared at zero
disparity, the background texture at 0.14° far disparity. The
neuron's initial response to this display was nearly the same as to
the homogeneous texture display. Yet after the initial response, the
disparity-defined disc evoked significantly more vigorous responses.
c, Illustration of the response when the disc figure was
defined by chrominance cues; in this condition, the space between
texture elements in the background was a green [CIE coordinates
(x,y) = (0.344, 0.486)] equiluminant to
the gray between texture elements in the disc [gray CIE coordinates
(x,y) = (0.333, 0.333)], as confirmed
with measurement by chrominance and luminance meters. We chose green
(as opposed to, say, red or blue) solely to minimize chromatic
aberration. The color-defined disc evoked a response very similar to
the disparity-defined disc. d, Illustration of the
response when the disc figure was defined by luminance cues; luminance
of bars outside the disc was 43 cd/m2, with the gray
background the normal 24 cd/m2 and the black bars the
normal 6 cd/m2. Again, the response of the V1 neuron was
very similar to that for the disparity-defined disc. e,
Illustration of the response to an orientation-defined disc. The cell
here also showed elevated activity after the initial response as
compared with the homogeneous texture display. f,
Illustration of the response to a disc defined by each of the four
preceding cues. The response magnitude for this ``combination''
display is not significantly different from that for discs defined by
the four constituent cues. g, Illustration of the
response for the disc-alone condition, in which the region outside the
disc remained a constant gray throughout the trial. The response
magnitude for this condition was not significantly different from the
preceding five conditions.
[View Larger Version of this Image (47K GIF file)]
Binocular disparity
We illustrate a rendition of a textured disc segmented from the
background through binocular disparity cues in Figure 3b.
The disc appears to float above a textured background. The disc texture
over the RF duplicates that in the corresponding region of the
homogeneous texture field. No previous study has investigated the
potential for binocular disparity cues to evoke extra-RF contextual
modulation.
Color, luminance
In Figure 3, c and d, we illustrate disc
displays in which either color or luminance act as cues for segmenting
the disc from background texture. Although previous studies have
investigated effects of color on extra-RF contextual modulation in
primate extrastriate cortex (Zeki, 1973
; Schein and Desimone, 1990
),
pure color and luminance cues have not been tested previously in this
manner in primate area V1.
Orientation
We also included an orientation-defined disc in the set of stimuli
(Fig. 3e).
Combination of cues
Figure 3f illustrates a rendition of the combination
disc display, in which orientation, disparity, color, and luminance all
serve to offset the disc from the texture background.
Disc alone
Another way to visualize the texture disc is through the complete
lack of background texture. In Figure 3g, we illustrate a
display of this type, called the ``disc-alone'' condition. The
texture disc in this case is identical to that in other displays.
In trials in which the disc-alone condition appeared, the area around
the disc remained a uniform gray.
We show the response activity of one isolated V1 neuron (cell
a) to these displays in the right column of Figure 3. For
each of the disc displays, this cell gave essentially the same
response: after a burst of activity at texture onset, the cell
exhibited a robust rate of activity for each disc, well above the
response level for the homogeneous texture display. The magnitude of
the contextual modulation for the cell in Figure 3 was very similar for
the various disc-defining cues (a topic to be addressed below).
We studied a total of 64 V1 neurons using the textured displays
described in Figures 3, the disc in each case being centered on the RF.
We focused exclusively on single-unit responses for this experiment,
because the response selectivity of individual neurons for the various
cues is of interest, and multiunit data would cloud this issue. For
most isolated cells, we used discs 3.6° in diameter
(n = 40). For the remaining isolated cells, we used
smaller discs, although never discs < 2.7° in diameter (which is
well above RF size). For each cell, we chose the orientation of RF
texture best suited for the cell. Aside from these manipulations, the
same texture displays were used for each experiment. Thus, beyond
varying orientation, we did not attempt to ``optimize'' the RF
texture for each cell. Indeed, optimizing RF texture
does not appear critical for evoking contextual modulation (Lamme,
1995
). The criterion for selecting a cell for experimentation was that
it gave clear responses to at least one of the texture displays; this
was the case with approximately one-third of the neurons that we
isolated. In general, we did not attempt to classify cells as simple or
complex, although it is likely that most cells in the sample are of the
complex type, because these are more responsive to the flashed random
texture patterns (De Valois and De Valois, 1988
).
For each of the 64 isolated V1 neurons thus tested, we calculated
extra-RF modulation ratios for each disc display (i.e., disc
response/homogeneous display response). The ratio measure is
independent of absolute neural response rate. In Figure
4, we show histograms of these modulation ratios pooled
by disc type. The data show that for the great majority of neurons,
each of these disc displays evoked greater responses than did the
homogeneous display, (i.e., most values in the histogram fall above the
extra-RF modulation ratio value 1.0). The median modulation ratios and
the percentage of cells significantly modulated for each disc display
are as follows: for disparity-defined discs, the median modulation
ratio was 1.67, and 50% of cells responded significantly more
vigorously to the figure than to the homogeneous texture display
(p < 0.05, one-sided t test); for
color, the values were 1.74 and 52%; for luminance, 1.44 and 34%; for
orientation, 1.69 and 52%. The extra-RF contextual modulation ratio
values for the combination display (1.73 median modulation ratio and
48% of cells showing significant modulation) were similar to those for
the other disc displays. This is an interesting result, because we
might expect that extra-RF modulation arising in response to a display
in which a number of potent cues segment the disc would reflect a
summation of effects from individual cues and thus be substantially
greater than extra-RF modulation evoked by any individual cue. Our data
show that this is not the case. Finally, for the disc-alone condition,
the median modulation ratio was 1.45, with 37% of cells significantly
modulated.
Fig. 4.
Single-unit extra-RF modulation ratios for diverse
cues. Activity measures, as always, are from 100 to 250 msec after
stimulus onset. The first five histograms compile modulation ratios for
various figure-defining cues for all 64 cells tested with each of the
following: the disparity-, color-, luminance-, orientation-, and
combination-defined figures. The last histogram compiles modulation
ratios for the 43 neurons tested with the disc-alone condition that
were also tested with the preceding five disc displays. The form of
each distribution is similar (i.e., most cells have ratio values > 1.0). See text for details.
[View Larger Version of this Image (16K GIF file)]
We show examples of isolated V1 cells with a range of cue receptivity
in Figure 5. In this figure, we only consider the five
disc types used on all 64 cells (i.e., we exclude the disc-alone
condition). In the top of the figure, we show responses rates for two
cells (including cell a from Fig. 3) that each had very
similarly positively modulated response rates for each of five disc
displays (i.e., disparity-, color-, luminance-, orientation-, and
combination-defined discs). In the bottom of the figure, we show
responses rates from two other cells that displayed cue-dependent
contextual modulation (i.e., discs defined by different cues yielded
highly dissimilar responses). To quantify the cue-dependence of
contextual modulation for a given cell, we defined a cue-variance index
(CVI), which is simply the SD of average disc
responses in excess of the homogeneous display response, divided by the
homogeneous display response. A large value of CVI for a
given cell indicates strong cue-dependence of contextual modulation,
whereas a cell with a CVI of zero would have the same
response to each disc display.
Fig. 5.
Variation of cue receptivity among single units
for diverse cues. This figure deals with the 64 isolated V1 neurons
tested with the homogeneous texture display (H)
and the five common disc displays: disparity (D), color
(C), luminance (L), orientation
(O), and combination (Cb). We define a
cue average variance index (CVI) as the standard
deviation of a cell's responses to disc displays in excess of the
response to the homogeneous texture display, normalized by the response
to the homogeneous texture display. For cell a (the same
cell as in Fig. 3), with activity levels shown as a bar chart in the
upper left of the figure, this corresponds to the SD of
the heights of the gray portions of the response bars divided by the
height of the leftmost bar (the homogeneous
display response). We conservatively define a neuron to be
cue-invariant in extra-RF contextual modulation if it has a
CVI < 0.25 and shows significantly
greater response to each of the five disc displays as compared with the
homogeneous texture display (p < 0.05 for
one-sided t test for each disc). The
center of the figure shows a pie chart that divides the
cells into three classes: cells not significantly modulated by any of
the five disc displays, cells that are cue-invariant, and cells with
significant modulation that fall short of the cue-invariant
classification. At the top and bottom of
the figure are example cells.
[View Larger Version of this Image (41K GIF file)]
To classify cells according to the cue selectivity of their contextual
modulation, we adopted conservative criteria for describing
``cue-invariant'' behavior. These were (1) that a given cell had
significantly greater responses (p < 0.05, one-sided t test) to each of the five common disc
displays compared with the homogeneous texture display; and (2) that
the cell's CVI was
0.25. This definition is necessarily
somewhat arbitrary, because the distribution of CVI values
is essentially continuous, with no clearly separate modes that could be
used to segregate cells. Nonetheless, the cutoff value we chose serves
to select only those cells that intuitively appear to respond
equivalently to the various cues, and the additional criteria of
multiple significance tests ensure that this appearance is unlikely to
be by chance. Twelve percent (n = 8) of the 64 isolated
cells tested thus were classified as cue-invariant, whereas 27% of the
cells (n = 17) were not significantly modulated by any
disc display, and the remaining 61% of cells (n = 39)
showed some significant contextual modulation without meeting the full
criteria for ``cue-invariance.''
One simple explanation for the invariance in response to disc displays
is that the neurons reach some saturating level of activation that
causes the response for each disc display to converge at the same
activity level. We can counter this argument by simply noting that the
neurons in fact did not reach saturating levels of activity
during stimulation with the normal texture displays. For example, the
most cue-invariant isolated V1 neurons in our sample (cell b
in Fig. 5) had an overall vigorous response for disc displays but could
be driven to a response level 63% larger by using a different RF
stimulus (for this cell, monocular texture stimulation in the right
eye) (data not shown). Observations such as these make it very unlikely
that the cue-invariance of extra-RF contextual modulation arises from
simple saturation in the response of cells from which we recorded.
In summary, in this section, we showed that within the population of V1
neurons, robust extra-RF modulation exists for each of the diverse cues
that we tested. These results suggest that extra-RF modulation serves a
function that generalizes across visual cues. If widespread extra-RF
modulation had existed for only a subset of the disc displays (say,
those defined by orientation and luminance but not those defined by
color or disparity), this phenomenon could at best serve only a
restricted role tied to particular visual cues (such as orientation or
luminance analysis). Instead, our results suggest that contextual
modulation serves an integrative function across diverse cues. This
means that cues traditionally considered separate subjects of study,
such as color and binocular disparity, are linked in the sense that
extra-RF contextual modulation in V1 commonly uses both. Although it
has been suggested that different visual cues (such as color and
binocular disparity) are processed independently by separate anatomical
modules in the visual system (Livingstone and Hubel, 1987
, 1988
), our
results show that many V1 neurons treat these cues interchangeably, at
least in terms of contextual modulation.
Spatial extent of extra-RF modulation
Complementary to the question of what cues evoke contextual
modulation is the question: how large is the spatial extent of this
phenomenon? We measured this by varying disc diameter from trial to
trial, while keeping the RF centered. Figure
6a shows sample responses from one V1
multiunit site tested with the homogeneous texture display,
whereas Figure 6b illustrates the entire diameter-tuning
curve for the same multiunit site. The magnitude of contextual
modulation declines with increasing disc diameter and vanishes at
~10° diameter.
Fig. 6.
Spatial extent of extra-RF contextual modulation
tested with discs of variable diameter. a, Illustration
of some sample responses from one multiunit site tested with variable
diameter discs defined by luminance. b, Illustration of
the entire diameter-response function for the same multiunit site.
Response rates fall off essentially monotonically with disc diameter.
c, Illustration of the median extra-RF modulation ratio
as a function of disc diameter for all 84 sites tested
(n = 65 tested with orientation-defined discs, 14 with luminance-defined discs, and 5 with color-defined discs). Extra-RF
modulation declines monotonically with disc diameter, reaching the
value 1.0 at ~10° diameter. d, Illustration of the
fraction of sites with significant modulation
(p < 0.05, one-sided t test)
as a function of disc diameter. The fraction of modulated sites reaches
chance level at ~8° diameter.
[View Larger Version of this Image (23K GIF file)]
We studied 33 single- and 51 multiunit sites in experiments with
variable sized discs. We used only orientation (n = 65), color (n = 5), or luminance (n = 14) cues for this part of the study, so that the entire monitor screen
(32 × 24° in dimensions) could be covered with texture. Single
and multiunit sites had similar characteristics. Figure 6c
illustrates the median contextual modulation ratio for all 84 sites,
measured at each disc diameter. This smooth, monotonically falling
spatial tuning function reaches the level of the homogeneous texture
background at ~10° diameter. Only at the smallest disc diameter
(1.8°) did we occasionally find significant deviations from this
pattern (perhaps reflecting an interaction between the disc contour and
the RFs of neurons in these cases). In Figure 6d, we graph
the fraction of sites with significant contextual modulation
(p < 0.05 for one-sided t test) as a
function of disc diameter. For discs with diameter up to ~8°, the
proportion of sites showing significant modulation is greater than that
expected by chance.
Contextual modulation with binocularly rivalrous displays
Up to this point, we have dealt with displays in which
inhomogeneity in texture outside the RF is correlated with the
expression of contextual modulation. In this and the following section,
we treat displays where this simple link is broken; in other words, we
study test texture displays that are not homogeneous but nonetheless
fail to evoke contextual modulation or, equivalently in our
terminology, evoke the same response as a homogeneously textured
display. The first such texture displays that we will describe involves
the use of binocular rivalry. Examples of rivalrous texture displays
used in our study are illustrated in Figure
7a. Each row of this figure shows the images
presented to left and right eyes and an approximate
representation of the cyclopean percept obtained when these images are
fused. In our experiments, monkeys viewed pairs of texture displays
through a haptoscope.
Fig. 7.
Extra-RF contextual modulation and binocular
rivalry. a, Illustration representing examples of three
types of binocularly rivalrous displays (case 1, case 2, and case 3)
for each illustrating left- and right-eye images and an approximate
representation of the cyclopean percept. See text for complete
description. b, Illustration of the response of one
multiunit site to these displays. c, Illustration of
another multiunit example. d, Histograms of extra-RF
modulation ratios for case 2/case 1 and case 3/case 1, with case 1 filling the role of the homogeneously textured display. See text for
details.
[View Larger Version of this Image (67K GIF file)]
The first row of Figure 7a illustrates the case in which
homogeneous texture is presented to each eye, but the texture
orientation differs by 90° between eyes (case 1). The cyclopean
percept is of a fairly homogeneous texture field combining texture
elements from both eyes. The second row illustrates the case in which
one eye views a homogeneous texture field while the other views a field
containing an orientation-defined figure (case 2). The stable cyclopean
percept here is of a clearly delineated square texture surface with
rivalrous texture patterns surrounded by a nonrivalrous background. The
third row shows the case in which an orientation-defined figure appears
to both eyes, but the orientation of texture at corresponding points in
the display differs by 90° between the eyes (case 3). As has been
observed previously with closely related displays (Kolb and Braun,
1995
), the cyclopean percept in this case is surprisingly
homogeneous. Some pieces of contour are visible in the fused display,
but the overall sense of figure/ground segregation seen in the
monocular images is clearly lost. Note that the texture in the central
region of the displays is the same in all three cases. (One consequence
of maintaining the same rivalrous texture over the RF from trial to
trial is that in the cases in which no figure is perceived, the
background texture is also rivalrous. Although it seems unlikely that
this fact in itself is the basis for the results we describe below,
future experiments should test this explicitly.)
We recorded from 40 multiunit and 6 single-unit sites in area V1 while
presenting displays like those in Figure 7a to awake,
fixating monkeys. Displays were configured such that the RF of a V1
neuron under study (or the aggregate RF of a group of cells) fell
completely within the square region of the display that sometimes
appeared as a figure. In this manner, the RF was stimulated with
exactly the same texture pattern from trial to trial,
whereas texture entirely outside the RF could vary, as seen in Figure
7a.
The responses recorded with rivalrous displays for one V1 multiunit
site are illustrated in Figure 7b. Texture was flashed on a
gray background for 200 msec as a monkey foveated the fixation spot.
Cells at this site showed almost no activity for the uniform gray
display but responded to the appearance of the case 1 texture display
with a vigorous burst of action potentials. After the initial response,
activity decayed to a reduced level for the remainder of the texture
display interval. Using case 2 texture displays in randomly interleaved
trials, we recorded dramatically different results. Although the cells
initially responded to the onset of the case 2 display in the same way
as in the previous case, the subsequent sustained activity level was
far greater. This extra-RF contextual modulation occurred whether the
orientation-defined figure appeared in the left or the right
eye. However, when the orientation-defined figure appeared in
both eyes (case 3), the response profile was virtually
identical to that for case 1.
Figure 7c illustrates results from a separate multiunit
site. This site showed strong ocular dominance for the right eye.
Contextual modulation in case 2 displays occurred predominantly for the
condition with the figure in the right eye. Still, when rivalrous
figures appeared in both eyes (case 3), the response again
was the same as for case 1, despite the fact that the right eye
stimulus was identical to that in the case 2 condition that produced
strong modulation.
The results across our sample of 46 V1 sites were remarkably consistent
with those shown in Figure 7, b and c. We again
quantify the results by calculating a ratio, the response rate to case
2 or case 3 displays divided by the response rate to the case 1 display. The top of Figure 7d illustrates a histogram of
extra-RF context modulation ratios for case 2, with the conditions of
the figure in either the left or the right eye averaged. As with the
examples above, the average responses to case 2 were typically greater
than to case 1; ratio values fall consistently above 1.0 (the median
value is 1.45; 76% of sites had significantly greater responses to at
least one of the case 2 displays as compared with the case 1 display,
p < 0.025 in one-sided t test for figure in
each eye). The bottom of Figure 7d illustrates a histogram
of extra-RF context modulation ratios for case 3. As with the examples
above, responses to case 3 were typically the same as to case 1; ratio
values cluster tightly about 1.0 (the median value is 1.01; only 2% of
sites showed activity significantly greater than for the case 1 display, p < 0.05 in one-sided t test).
Thus, displays that generate a cyclopean percept of a homogeneously
textured field evoke the same level of neural activity (given identical
RF stimulation) as a truly homogeneous texture field, even though
the monocular images may contain clearly defined figures.
An important question is, how do neural responses correlated with
perception of rivalrous displays relate to the ocular dominance
characteristics of individual V1 cells? The data in our rivalry
experiment (predominantly recordings of multiple-unit activity in
superficial layers of striate cortex) do not contain a sufficiently
large proportion of sites with strong ocular bias to establish
quantitative relationships on this point. Nonetheless, it is noteworthy
that in the examples that we do have of sites whose receptive fields
were predominantly activated by stimulation in one eye (e.g., Fig.
7c), there is a clear interaction of contextual stimuli
across the eyes.
In summary, we have seen with the results in Figures 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 that a change
in the global perceptual nature of an image can substantially alter the
firing rate of V1 neurons the RFs for which cannot detect the change in
stimulus. However, with our experiments using binocularly rivalrous
stimuli in Figure 7, case 3, we demonstrate that a large change in the
image stimulus that has little or no perceptual consequence
(because of rivalry) does not alter the firing rate of V1 neurons.
Contextual modulation and perceived distal structure
One possible interpretation of the results thus far is that
contextual modulation better reflects the perceived structure of the
stimulus (e.g., figure vs ground or figure size) than it reflects the
particular cues (such as disparity or color) that delineate this
structure. Our purpose for this section lies in studying more directly
how extra-RF modulation relates to the perceived distal structure of
our stimulus displays. Our approach is to vary the perceived distal
structure of the display region containing the RF, while at the same
time keeping RF texture stimulation the same from trial to trial. A key
display that allows us to do this is illustrated in Figure
8a. The display appears as a homogeneously
textured field, with the modification that we can manipulate the
perceived depth of a band of texture surrounding the RF by varying
binocular disparity cues (i.e., the band of texture between the
white dashed lines in Fig. 8a; dashed lines are
not in the actual display). It is in our opinion a reasonable
assumption that our monkeys perceived the various manipulations of this
display as do human (see Materials and Methods); however, we cannot
offer proof here of this assumption.
Fig. 8.
Extra-RF contextual modulation and perceived
distal structure. a, Configuration of a texture display
in which a band of texture surrounding the RF may vary in apparent
depth through binocular disparity cues. The default texture was
typically at zero disparity, although we used far background disparity
as the default in some experiments. b, Illustration of
how this display may be configured to appear as a homogenous texture
display, moat display, or frame display. Typically, the disparity
offset of moat and frame was ±0.14°, although this value was not
critical. Monkey binocular vision is similar to that of man (see
Materials and Methods), and we assume that our monkey subjects perceive
these displays as do human observers. c, Illustration of
the responses of a multiunit site to the displays in b.
For this experiment, RF texture was always at zero disparity.
d, Illustration of responses of another multiunit site.
For the data shown, RF texture was at 0.14° far disparity (with moat
and frame moved back accordingly to preserve the relative depth
arrangements). The contextual modulation pattern is the same as in
c. The site in d also gave the same
pattern of response when RF texture was at zero disparity (data not
shown). e, Extra-RF contextual modulation ratios for 146 sites for moat (top) and frame (bottom)
displays. See text for details.
[View Larger Version of this Image (62K GIF file)]
In the case in which we cause the texture band surrounding the RF to
have the same binocular disparity as the other regions of the display,
we simply generate a standard homogeneous texture display. In the top
of Figure 8b, we illustrate this display. In Figure 8,
c (top) and d (top), we
illustrate the average response profiles of two V1 multiunit sites to
stimulation with this display. Each showed an initial vigorous burst of
activity in response to texture onset, followed by a much diminished
response rate for the remainder of the texture display interval.
Moat
We could alter the perceived distal structure of the display by
causing the band of texture surrounding the RF to appear farther away
in depth from the remaining area of texture (typically through 0.14°
uncrossed horizontal disparity). We refer to this receded region as a
``moat,'' illustrated in the center of Figure 8b. As seen
from the illustration, with establishment of the moat, the RF no longer
appears positioned on a large textured field but rather appears to be
positioned on a small square surface isolated from the textured
background by the moat. In the experiment, moat depth was only apparent
through binocular disparity cues, although we provide some shading cues
to depth in Figure 8b for schematic purposes.
In Figure 8, c (center) and d
(center), we illustrate the resulting average response
profiles of the two multiunit sites. The initial response of the
multiunit sites to the moat display was nearly identical to the
response to the homogeneous texture display. However, for both sites
the response rates diverged ~100 msec after texture onset, with the
moat display causing the cells at each site to maintain a more vigorous
response rate than did the homogeneous texture display (gray shading of
the response profiles.) Thus, we see that the moat display evoked
extra-RF modulation of the same nature as we have seen with the various
tests that we have already described in previous sections of this
paper.
Frame
We could also modify the display in Figure 8b in a
different way by having the texture band surrounding the RF appear
nearer in depth than the remaining area of texture (through 0.14°
crossed horizontal disparity). In this case, the perceived distal
structure (Fig. 8b, bottom) is completely
different from the moat display. In the frame display, the RF appears
positioned not on a small textured surface but on a large textured
surface continuous with the textured background, as though a
narrow textured ``frame'' were merely floating above and partially
occluding the homogeneous texture display. In Figure 8, c
(bottom) and d (bottom), we illustrate
the average responses rates of each multiunit site to the frame
display. The results stand in strong contrast to the response to the
moat display, because the multiunit responses to the frame display
either closely follow those to the homogeneous texture display or are
even less vigorous.
Remarkably, this asymmetry of effect for the moat display compared with
the frame display was highly consistent among the 14 single- and 132 multiunit sites that we studied with these stimuli. We demonstrate this
in Figure 8e, which illustrates histograms of extra-RF
contextual modulation ratios for these recording sites. In the top of
the histogram, we show the values for moat response/homogeneous
response. Extra-RF modulation ratio values in this case fall
consistently above 1.0, indicating that neural responses for the moat
display generally exceeded those for the homogeneous texture display
(the median value is 1.68; 63% of sites showed responses for the moat
display significantly greater than to the homogeneous texture display,
p < 0.05 in one-sided t test). In the
bottom, we show the ratio values for frame response/homogeneous
response. In contrast to the moat case, here the extra-RF modulation
ratio values cluster near or below 1.0, indicating that for the frame
display, neurons responded in a manner similar to or weaker than that
to the homogeneous texture display (the median value being 0.75; 37%
of sites showed responses to the frame display significantly
less than to the homogeneous texture display, whereas only
2% of sites showed significantly greater activity, p < 0.05 in one-sided t tests). The square region inside the
moat or frame was between 2 and 3.6° for different recording sites.
Control experiments at each recording site showed that cells did not
respond to the extra-RF texture band alone, or gave at best extremely
weak responses, regardless of whether it appeared at near (frame), far
(moat), or zero disparities (data not shown).
Perturbations in moat and frame displays that retained the essential
character of their perceived distal structure evoked qualitatively
similar results to those just described. For example, the asymmetry in
effect of moat and frame displays for evocation of extra-RF modulation
did not depend on having the displays centered at zero disparity (the
standard case, e.g., multiple-unit site 5 in Fig. 8c) but
was equally evident when we moved texture displays back in depth
relative to the fixation spot (e.g., multiple-unit site 6 in Fig.
8d). Furthermore, we could vary the magnitude of the moat
and frame disparities to larger or smaller values than our ±0.14°
standard without qualitatively altering the basic moat/frame modulation
asymmetry (data not shown).
In summary, when the RFs of V1 neurons appear to rest on a large flat
textured surface (i.e., the homogeneous texture display), cells
consistently give a small response, even when this surface is partially
occluded by a frame. However, when the RFs of V1 neurons appear within
a smaller ``figure'' surface surrounded by a moat, consistent
contextual modulation is evoked.
It seems natural to ask whether the moat/frame asymmetry stems from
some asymmetry in the RF disparity tuning of cells in our sample. In
fact, we did not find any overall bias of single- or multiunit sites
for a particular RF disparity tuning. In other words, the normal
results for presentation of moat and frame displays may be elicited
from cells that prefer either near or far disparity stimuli (data not
shown). Analogous dissociations have been observed by Lamme (1995)
,
wherein extra-RF contextual modulation evoked by orientation cues has
no correlation with the sharpness of orientation tuning of individual
V1 RFs; furthermore, Lamme also found that direction selectivity of V1
RFs was uncorrelated with contextual modulation evoked by motion cues.
Taken together, these data suggest an overall dissociation between
specific types of RF tuning and the extra-RF contextual modulation
received by V1 neurons.
Temporal characteristics of V1 contextual modulation
A striking trend in the results that we have collected is the
delay in the expression of extra-RF contextual modulation in V1. This
delay is important in the discussion of whether contextual modulation
reflects perceptual experience, because the delay could allow complex
and lengthy neural computations to contribute to the expression of this
phenomenon. But is this delay indeed a characteristic of contextual
modulation, or is it an artifact tied in some trivial way to the recent
history of RF stimulation? For example, is the delay of contextual
modulation a mere artifact of saturation in neural response at
texture onset?
To show that the delay in the onset of extra-RF modulation is a
characteristic feature of the phenomenon itself and not merely a simple
side effect of the recent history of RF stimulation, we need to show
that this delay is independent of the time at which the RF itself was
first stimulated. We test this by using a two-step procedure in which
we first present a homogeneous texture display (thereby generating the
initial burst of neural activity) and then subsequently modifying
only the extra-RF stimulus. We can contrast these results to
the response recorded when the homogeneous texture display remains
unchanged throughout the entire period. In Figure
9a, we illustrate results of an experiment of
this type performed on 53 V1 multiunit sites. In the first step of
texture presentation, the homogeneous display appears for 150 msec. In
the second step, a narrow band of texture surrounding but outside the
RF is replaced with texture of farther binocular disparity. The result
is that the display in this second step contains a figure region
surrounded by a gap or moat. The average neural response for this
two-step condition is illustrated by trace M and is compared with the
response to a long-duration homogeneous display (trace
H). We see that after the initial burst of activity, the
response rate settles into a steady state of activity. However, between
80 and 100 msec after the display changed to the moat-defined figure
configuration, the response rate rebounds to a more elevated
level of activity (indicated by the gray shading of the
response profile). The vertical arrow indicates the time at which the
cells would have started to respond had the texture within the RF
itself been modified in the second step of the two-step condition. Note
that the average response at this point in time is in fact identical to
the average response to the static homogeneous texture display.
Interestingly, the delay of modulation in the two-step
presentation (highlighted in gray) is the same as for the
modulation evoked by a normal one-step presentation of moat
versus homogeneous displays (Fig. 9b, showing average data
from the same sites collected in randomly interleaved trials).
Fig. 9.
Characteristic delay of extra-RF contextual
modulation. In a two-step texture presentation procedure, we initially
present the homogeneous texture display and then 150 msec later, change
to the moat display by manipulating only extra-RF texture. As the RF is
entirely within the moat-defined figure, it receives static RF texture
stimulation whether or not the moat appears. In a, we
compare average response profiles of 53 sites for the two-step moat
presentation (trace M) and simple long-duration
homogeneous texture (trace H). The responses are
identical until ~80 msec after the moat appears, after which the
neural response rebounds for the moat condition. In b,
we show the results of the analogous one-step moat experiment performed
on the same 53 sites in randomly interleaved trials. Despite the
different time course of RF stimulation, the timing of extra-RF
contextual modulation is the same.
[View Larger Version of this Image (34K GIF file)]
Also in interleaved trials, we included a two-step presentation similar
to that in Figure 9a, except that the texture band added in
the second step was of the same disparity as the homogeneous texture;
thus, despite a texture change between steps one and two as the band
was added, both steps had the same steady-state appearance of a
homogeneous surface. Unlike the two-step presentation in which the moat
was added in the second step, this procedure yielded no consistent
effect: responses were statistically indistinguishable from those for
the static homogeneous texture presentation in 87% of recording sites
(p > 0.05 for two-sided t test), and
for the remaining sites, there was no bias toward increased or
decreased response (data not shown).
The results in this section are important, because they indicate that
extra-RF modulation need not be triggered by an initial burst of
activity. Rather, the results show that extra-RF modulation may be
triggered even when neurons have achieved a steady state of firing from
constant RF stimulation. They suggest that extra-RF contextual
modulation is a neural process distinct from the normal RF functioning
of a V1 neuron, because in contrast to the delay in expressing extra-RF
modulation, V1 neurons display their tuning specificity for visual
stimuli with their first action potential responses to visual
stimulation (Celebrini et al., 1993
).
It has been suggested that the delay in expression of contextual
modulation in our texture experiments is a phenomenon related to the
delay in neural response that can be observed with low-luminance
contrast stimuli (Geisler and Albrecht, 1992
). This speculation is
based on the assumption that our texture figures in some sense have low
``effective'' contrast analogous to the low-luminance contrast.
However, this assumption fits neither with phenomenological
observations of our actual displays (i.e., figures do not appear to be
``low contrast'' on the monitor screen) nor with behavioral data
(i.e., monkeys consistently are able to initiate eye movements to
texture figures with short latencies in the range of 120-150 msec),
but for true low-contrast luminance stimuli, the latency may be twice
as long (Schiller, 1993
).
DISCUSSION
Given the images impinging on the retinae, the visual system must
model the three-dimensional structures of the distal world. Distal
world structure cannot be found through image-filtering alone, however,
because the structures of the distal world modeled so richly through
our perception do not in fact exist in the retinal images (Kanisza,
1979
; Marr, 1982
). Rather, distal structure must be inferred
from their reflected traces of contour and texture in the retinal
images (Nakayama and Shimojo, 1992
; Adelson, 1993
; Anderson and Julesz,
1995
). Moreover, because we have a relatively fixed vantage point on
any scene at any given moment, the visual system must also make
inferences about forms not directly visible, such as the manner in
which surfaces continue beneath occluding structures (Nakayama et al.,
1989
; Kovacs and Julesz, 1994
; Rensink and Enns, 1995
). For the visual
system to accomplish these tasks, it must employ sophisticated
mechanisms for translating retinal images into models of the
three-dimensional structures in the distal world.
The function of area V1 has long appeared far removed from these
concerns. The RFs of V1 neurons are well described as spatially
localized filters, jointly tuned for orientation and spatial frequency
(Schiller et al., 1976a
,b; Movshon et al., 1978
; De Valois et al.,
1982a
,b). The ``lines'' or ``edges'' that may stimulate these cells
(Hubel and Wiesel, 1968
) do so not because they form the contours of
surfaces or objects in any perceptual context. Rather, they do so
merely because the cells are tuned for the specific two-dimensional
spatial frequency content of these stimuli, regardless of their
perceptual context (De Valois et al., 1979
). The tuning
characteristics of V1 RFs for color and binocular disparity are
likewise well described as simple filters that have no direct
connection to the perceptual interpretation of distal world structure
(Lennie et al., 1990
; DeAngelis et al., 1991
).
The problem of synthesizing, from V1 RF filter information,
a perceptual model of distal world structure (as, for example, in
reconstructing the three-dimensional form of physical surfaces) has
traditionally been assumed to occur only at later stages of visual
processing than striate cortex. This view has appeared sensible both
because the filter description of V1 seemed conceptually complete (De
Valois and De Valois, 1988
), and because there was little compelling
evidence that V1 neurons could be doing anything qualitatively
different from simple image filtering. The extra-RF contextual
modulation recently described by Lamme (1995)
and in the present paper
stands in strong contrast to the filter properties of the V1 RFs
themselves, however. We have seen that contextual modulation is a
phenomenon of broad spatial scope (Fig. 6), which is nonetheless
sensitive to fairly small-scale perturbations of the stimulus display
(Fig. 8). It may be evoked by a wide variety of visual cues (Fig. 4),
and under certain stimulus conditions, can respond invariantly to
individual cues or to cues in combination (Fig. 5). Yet under other
conditions, strong image features will fail to evoke extra-RF
modulation and may even block its effects (Fig. 7). Although these
observations in no way challenge theories of the functional role of the
RF itself, the complexity and apparent flexibility of extra-RF
contextual modulation in V1 clearly does challenge the view that the
role of the V1 neuron is solely to filter local regions of
images in a cue-specific manner.
There is, of course, a great difference between saying on the one hand
that V1 neurons do more than simple RF filtering, and on the other that
V1 in fact participates in perceptual modeling of distal world
structure. Although the former point is now indisputable, the latter
calls for debate. Our approach has been to observe whether contextual
modulation recorded in monkey V1 consistently follows our perception of
textured displays. To an astounding degree, this has been the case. The
results on binocular rivalry, cue combination and invariance, and moat
and frame, considered together with Lamme's previous data (1995), in
our opinion call for serious consideration of the hypothesis that area
V1 has access to and participates in formation of perceptual
interpretation of the visual scene.
As is illustrated in Figure 10, the various primate
extrastriate cortical areas are all activated before the appearance of
contextual modulation that we observed in V1 (Maunsell, 1987
; Maunsell
and Gibson, 1992
; Miller and Desimone, 1993
). The large spatial scope
and the complex RFs of extrastriate neurons (Peterhans, 1989; Albright,
1992
; Snowden et al., 1992
; von der Heydt and Marcar et al., 1995
),
coupled with the delay in expression of modulation in V1, should allow
feedback signals from extrastriate areas to support the neural events
that we have observed. In contrast, it is not clear from our current
understanding of circuitry within V1 (Lund, 1988
; Gilbert
and Wiesel, 1989
; McGuire et al., 1991
; Kapadia et al., 1995
) that
lateral connections in striate cortex could underlie our results. One
possible interpretation of our data is that visual processing involves
a series of temporally discrete steps in which information is initially
fed forward through V1, is further processed in extrastriate cortex,
and then returns to V1 after an interval of ~50 msec. Such delayed
feedback would permit V1 access to perceptual interpretations of the
visual scene, such as surface or figure/ground representations of the
distal world, ascribed previously only to extrastriate cortical areas.
Fig. 10.
Comparison of response latencies of various
visual areas and extra-RF contextual modulation in area V1. Extra-RF
contextual modulation in V1 occurs well after the extrastriate cortical
areas are initially activated. If we assume that feedforward and
feedback pathways have the same time delay (Domenici et al., 1995
), we
see that the V1-inferotemporal cortex (IT) latency would
permit IT signals to reenter V1 before extra-RF contextual modulation
is fully expressed at the poststimulus onset time t = 100 msec.
[View Larger Version of this Image (15K GIF file)]
FOOTNOTES
Received Oct. 16, 1995; revised Aug. 28, 1996; accepted Sept. 3, 1996.
This research was supported by a grant from the National Eye Institute
to P.H.S., a grant from The Netherlands Organization for Scientific
Research to V.A.F.L., and an Office of Naval Research graduate
fellowship and a McDonnell-Pew Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at MIT
postdoctoral fellowship to K.Z. We thank D. Zipser and numerous other
colleagues for valuable discussion. We thank C. J. Doane-Palafox and T. S. Lee for help with some of these experiments, W. M. Slocum for
assistance with computer programming, and C. Conner and J. Mendola for
reading this manuscript.
Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Karl Zipser, The Netherlands
Ophthalmic Research Institute, P.O. Box 12141, 1100 AC Amsterdam, The
Netherlands.
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90(3):
1910 - 1920.
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
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W. Bair, J. R. Cavanaugh, and J. A. Movshon
Time Course and Time-Distance Relationships for Surround Suppression in Macaque V1 Neurons
J. Neurosci.,
August 20, 2003;
23(20):
7690 - 7701.
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
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J. R. Muller, A. B. Metha, J. Krauskopf, and P. Lennie
Local Signals From Beyond the Receptive Fields of Striate Cortical Neurons
J Neurophysiol,
August 1, 2003;
90(2):
822 - 831.
[Abstract]
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D. Smyth, B. Willmore, G. E. Baker, I. D. Thompson, and D. J. Tolhurst
The Receptive-Field Organization of Simple Cells in Primary Visual Cortex of Ferrets under Natural Scene Stimulation
J. Neurosci.,
June 1, 2003;
23(11):
4746 - 4759.
[Abstract]
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H. Super, C. van der Togt, H. Spekreijse, and V. A. F. Lamme
Internal State of Monkey Primary Visual Cortex (V1) Predicts Figure-Ground Perception
J. Neurosci.,
April 15, 2003;
23(8):
3407 - 3414.
[Abstract]
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Y. Naya, M. Yoshida, and Y. Miyashita
Forward Processing of Long-Term Associative Memory in Monkey Inferotemporal Cortex
J. Neurosci.,
April 1, 2003;
23(7):
2861 - 2871.
[Abstract]
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A. L. Williams, K. D. Singh, and A. T. Smith
Surround Modulation Measured With Functional MRI in the Human Visual Cortex
J Neurophysiol,
January 1, 2003;
89(1):
525 - 533.
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
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D. S. Marcus and D. C. Van Essen
Scene Segmentation and Attention in Primate Cortical Areas V1 and V2
J Neurophysiol,
November 1, 2002;
88(5):
2648 - 2658.
[Abstract]
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W. Li and C. D. Gilbert
Global Contour Saliency and Local Colinear Interactions
J Neurophysiol,
November 1, 2002;
88(5):
2846 - 2856.
[Abstract]
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J. A. Bourne, R. Tweedale, and M. G.P. Rosa
Physiological Responses of New World Monkey V1 Neurons to Stimuli Defined by Coherent Motion
Cereb Cortex,
November 1, 2002;
12(11):
1132 - 1145.
[Abstract]
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M. W. Spratling
Cortical region interactions and the functional role of apical dendrites.
Behav Cogn Neurosci Rev,
September 1, 2002;
1(3):
219 - 228.
[Abstract]
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D. G. Albrecht, W. S. Geisler, R. A. Frazor, and A. M. Crane
Visual Cortex Neurons of Monkeys and Cats: Temporal Dynamics of the Contrast Response Function
J Neurophysiol,
August 1, 2002;
88(2):
888 - 913.
[Abstract]
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N. J. Priebe, M. M. Churchland, and S. G. Lisberger
Constraints on the Source of Short-Term Motion Adaptation in Macaque Area MT. I. The Role of Input and Intrinsic Mechanisms
J Neurophysiol,
July 1, 2002;
88(1):
354 - 369.
[Abstract]
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G. A. Walker, I. Ohzawa, and R. D. Freeman
Disinhibition Outside Receptive Fields in the Visual Cortex
J. Neurosci.,
July 1, 2002;
22(13):
5659 - 5668.
[Abstract]
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M. M. Murray, G. R. Wylie, B. A. Higgins, D. C. Javitt, C. E. Schroeder, and J. J. Foxe
The Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Illusory Contour Processing: Combined High-Density Electrical Mapping, Source Analysis, and Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging
J. Neurosci.,
June 15, 2002;
22(12):
5055 - 5073.
[Abstract]
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S. P. MacEvoy and M. A. Paradiso
Lightness constancy in primary visual cortex
PNAS,
July 5, 2001;
(2001)
161280398.
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
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I. R. Olson, M. M. Chun, and T. Allison
Contextual guidance of attention: Human intracranial event-related potential evidence for feedback modulation in anatomically early temporally late stages of visual processing
Brain,
July 1, 2001;
124(7):
1417 - 1425.
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
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L. C. Sincich and G. G. Blasdel
Oriented Axon Projections in Primary Visual Cortex of the Monkey
J. Neurosci.,
June 15, 2001;
21(12):
4416 - 4426.
[Abstract]
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A. Hanazawa and H. Komatsu
Influence of the Direction of Elemental Luminance Gradients on the Responses of V4 Cells to Textured Surfaces
J. Neurosci.,
June 15, 2001;
21(12):
4490 - 4497.
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
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J. S. Anderson, I. Lampl, D. C. Gillespie, and D. Ferster
Membrane Potential and Conductance Changes Underlying Length Tuning of Cells in Cat Primary Visual Cortex
J. Neurosci.,
March 15, 2001;
21(6):
2104 - 2112.
[Abstract]
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A. F. Rossi, R. Desimone, and L. G. Ungerleider
Contextual Modulation in Primary Visual Cortex of Macaques
J. Neurosci.,
March 1, 2001;
21(5):
1698 - 1709.
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
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N. P. Bichot, K. G. Thompson, S. C. Rao, and J. D. Schall
Reliability of Macaque Frontal Eye Field Neurons Signaling Saccade Targets during Visual Search
J. Neurosci.,
January 15, 2001;
21(2):
713 - 725.
[Abstract]
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J.-M. Hupe, A. C. James, P. Girard, and J. Bullier
Response Modulations by Static Texture Surround in Area V1 of the Macaque Monkey Do Not Depend on Feedback Connections From V2
J Neurophysiol,
January 1, 2001;
85(1):
146 - 163.
[Abstract]
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H. Komatsu, M. Kinoshita, and I. Murakami
Neural Responses in the Retinotopic Representation of the Blind Spot in the Macaque V1 to Stimuli for Perceptual Filling-In
J. Neurosci.,
December 15, 2000;
20(24):
9310 - 9319.
[Abstract]
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J. S. Bakin, K. Nakayama, and C. D. Gilbert
Visual Responses in Monkey Areas V1 and V2 to Three-Dimensional Surface Configurations
J. Neurosci.,
November 1, 2000;
20(21):
8188 - 8198.
[Abstract]
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A. Gail, H. J. Brinksmeyer, and R. Eckhorn
Contour Decouples Gamma Activity Across Texture Representation in Monkey Striate Cortex
Cereb Cortex,
September 1, 2000;
10(9):
840 - 850.
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
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H. Zhou, H. S. Friedman, and R. von der Heydt
Coding of Border Ownership in Monkey Visual Cortex
J. Neurosci.,
September 1, 2000;
20(17):
6594 - 6611.
[Abstract]
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S. Kastner, P. De Weerd, and L. G. Ungerleider
Texture Segregation in the Human Visual Cortex: A Functional MRI Study
J Neurophysiol,
April 1, 2000;
83(4):
2453 - 2457.
[Abstract]
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W. Li, P. Thier, and C. Wehrhahn
Contextual Influence on Orientation Discrimination of Humans and Responses of Neurons in V1 of Alert Monkeys
J Neurophysiol,
February 1, 2000;
83(2):
941 - 954.
[Abstract]
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G. A. Walker, I. Ohzawa, and R. D. Freeman
Asymmetric Suppression Outside the Classical Receptive Field of the Visual Cortex
J. Neurosci.,
December 1, 1999;
19(23):
10536 - 10553.
[Abstract]
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S. E. Raiguel, D.-K. Xiao, V. L. Marcar, and G. A. Orban
Response Latency of Macaque Area MT/V5 Neurons and Its Relationship to Stimulus Parameters
J Neurophysiol,
October 1, 1999;
82(4):
1944 - 1956.
[Abstract]
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A. F. Rossi and M. A. Paradiso
Neural Correlates of Perceived Brightness in the Retina, Lateral Geniculate Nucleus, and Striate Cortex
J. Neurosci.,
July 15, 1999;
19(14):
6145 - 6156.
[Abstract]
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P. Kara and M. J. Friedlander
Arginine Analogs Modify Signal Detection by Neurons in the Visual Cortex
J. Neurosci.,
July 1, 1999;
19(13):
5528 - 5548.
[Abstract]
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B. G. Cumming and A. J. Parker
Binocular Neurons in V1 of Awake Monkeys Are Selective for Absolute, Not Relative, Disparity
J. Neurosci.,
July 1, 1999;
19(13):
5602 - 5618.
[Abstract]
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V. A.F. Lamme, V. Rodriguez-Rodriguez, and H. Spekreijse
Separate Processing Dynamics for Texture Elements, Boundaries and Surfaces in Primary Visual Cortex of the Macaque Monkey
Cereb Cortex,
June 1, 1999;
9(4):
406 - 413.
[Abstract]
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Z. Shao and A. Burkhalter
Role of GABAB Receptor-Mediated Inhibition in Reciprocal Interareal Pathways of Rat Visual Cortex
J Neurophysiol,
March 1, 1999;
81(3):
1014 - 1024.
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
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T. Moore, A. S. Tolias, and P. H. Schiller
Visual representations during saccadic eye movements
PNAS,
July 21, 1998;
95(15):
8981 - 8984.
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
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V. A. F. Lamme, K. Zipser, and H. Spekreijse
Figure-ground activity in primary visual cortex is suppressed by anesthesia
PNAS,
March 17, 1998;
95(6):
3263 - 3268.
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
[PDF]
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S. P. MacEvoy and M. A. Paradiso
Lightness constancy in primary visual cortex
PNAS,
July 17, 2001;
98(15):
8827 - 8831.
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
[PDF]
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