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The Journal of Neuroscience, September 15, 1998, 18(18):7552-7565
Center-Surround Antagonism Based on Disparity in Primate
Area MT
David C.
Bradley and
Richard A.
Andersen
Biology Division, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena,
California 91225
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ABSTRACT |
Most neurons in primate visual area MT have a large, modulatory
region surrounding their classically defined receptive field, or
center. The velocity tuning of this "surround" is generally antagonistic to the center, making it potentially useful for detecting image discontinuities on the basis of differential motion. Because classical MT receptive fields are also disparity-selective, one might
expect to find disparity-based surround antagonism as well; this would
provide additional information about image discontinuities. However,
the effects of disparity in the MT surround have not been studied
previously. We measured single-neuron responses to variable-disparity
moving patterns in the MT surround while holding a central moving
pattern at a fixed disparity. Of the 130 neurons tested, 84% exhibited
a modulatory surround, and in 52% of these, responses were
significantly affected by disparity in the surround. In most cases,
disparity effects in the surround were antagonistic to the center; that
is, neurons were generally suppressed when center and surround stimuli
had the same disparity, with decreasing suppression as the center and
surround stimuli became separated in depth. Also, the effects of
disparity and direction were mainly additive; i.e., disparity effects
were generally independent of direction, and vice versa. These results
suggest that the MT center-surround apparatus provides information
about image discontinuities, not only on the basis of velocity
differences but on the basis of depth differences as well. This
supports the hypothesis that MT surrounds have a role in image
segmentation.
Key words:
middle temporal area; motion perception; receptive field
surrounds; image segmentation; primate; velocity tuning
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INTRODUCTION |
The middle temporal visual area (MT
or V5) is among the most widely studied cortical areas in the primate.
It is functionally distinguished from other early visual areas in that
its neurons are highly selective for stimulus direction and speed, and
relatively insensitive to form, texture, and color (Dubner and Zeki,
1971 ; Zeki, 1974 ; Maunsell and Van Essen, 1983a ,b ). MT responses covary with the perception of direction in behaving monkeys (Newsome et al.,
1989 ), and MT lesions in humans and monkeys degrade performance in
tasks requiring velocity estimation (Siegel and Andersen, 1986 ; Newsome
and Wurtz, 1988 ; Schiller and Lee, 1994 ). For these reasons MT is
thought to have a central role in visual motion perception in the
primate.
MT is situated on the floor and posterior bank of the superior temporal
sulcus of owl and rhesus monkeys (Allman and Kaas, 1971 ; Dubner and
Zeki, 1971 ; Zeki, 1974 ), and a functionally and anatomically similar
region has been identified in humans (Tootell et al., 1995 ). In
monkeys, MT receives much of its input from layer 4b of V1, which has a
high concentration of direction-selective neurons (Dow, 1974 ). MT
projects strongly to the medial superior temporal area, whose neurons
are preponderantly directional and which appears to have a role in
computing self-motion from retinal motion patterns (aki Saito et al.,
1986 ; Bradley et al., 1996 ). Other projection zones of MT (ventral
intraparietal area, fundus of the superior temporal sulcus) also
contain directional neurons (Colby et al., 1993 ; Desimone and
Ungerleider, 1986 ). MT is thus situated squarely in what has been
termed the visual motion pathway.
In studying the primate visual motion pathway, we have tried to
consider not only how visual motion signals are measured, but also how
they are used. Beyond the ability to recognize movement in the visual
field, retinal motion gives other kinds of information related to
structure in the environment (Wallach and O'Connell, 1953 ) and to our
own motion with respect to the environment (Gibson, 1950 ). Therefore,
to understand cortical motion processing, it is important to understand
how motion cues are converted to other kinds of information.
One of the basic uses of motion signals is to facilitate scene
segmentation (Nakayama, 1985 ; Braddick, 1993 ; Stoner and Albright, 1993 ). How do we know, for example, when two regions of contrast on the
retina correspond to a single object or to separate objects? Although
color and texture may vary over different parts of an object or
surface, the direction and speed tend to be the same on all the parts.
Therefore, relative motion is a useful cue for parsing an
image into its separate components. This is borne out by psychophysical
experiments that show that relative motion conveys a strong sense of
image discontinuity (Braddick, 1993 ).
Several lines of evidence suggest that MT plays a role in scene
segmentation and, more generally, the inference of structure from
motion cues. Movshon and colleagues (1985) used stimuli composed of two
surfaces (sine-wave gratings) sliding over each other to show that some
MT neurons respond as if to a single surface, whereas others respond
selectively to the movement of the component surfaces. This suggested
that MT, as an area, is concerned not only with detecting visual motion
but also with segmenting an image into its coherently and separately
moving parts.
Maunsell and Van Essen (1983b) discovered that MT neurons are tuned for
binocular disparity. They also showed that this disparity tuning does
not function to compute three-dimensional motion, because none of the
MT neurons studied responded selectively to motion-through-depth
(instead, neurons are tuned for two-dimensional frontoparallel velocity
at a particular depth). A possible explanation for the
disparity tuning came from later studies from our lab, where we showed
that MT neurons are normally suppressed by equidistant surfaces moving
in opposite directions, but this suppression is weak or absent when the
surfaces move at different depths (Bradley et al., 1995 ). This means
that certain MT neurons can respond to the movement of a
given surface without being affected by other surfaces
moving at different depths. As in the studies by Movshon et al. (1985) ,
these findings suggested that MT cells associate motion cues with a
particular surface, and as such they could play a basic role in image
segmentation.
The studies discussed so far were all performed in the classically
defined MT receptive field, the part of the visual field in which a
moving stimulus evokes a response. However, most MT receptive fields
contain another region, known as the surround, which is potentially
important as a mechanism for segmentation in MT. Allman and colleagues
(1985a ,b ) first discovered this surround, a large region surrounding
the classical receptive field (center), in MT of owl monkeys. Although
moving stimuli in the surround do not cause MT cells to respond, their
presence modulates the response to stimuli in the center. These authors
showed that MT surrounds are generally antagonistic to the center; that
is, cells are suppressed when surround motion has the same direction as motion in the center, but less suppressed, and sometimes facilitated, when center and surround motions are in different directions. Similarly, cells tend to respond better when stimuli in the center and
surround have different speeds. These findings imply that MT firing
rates carry information about differences in image motion. Allman et al. (1985a ,b ) proposed that center-surround interactions in
MT could be used to distinguish an object's motion from its background, because motion differences tend to occur across the edges
of moving objects. If so, this would support a role for MT surrounds in
computations related to image segmentation.
It is possible that MT surrounds act as differential motion detectors,
but that their purpose is not related to image segmentation or
structure. Differential motion could be used, for example, for drawing
attention to certain parts of a scene (Nakayama, 1985 ) or for computing
self-motion during eye movements (Warren, 1995 ). Therefore, it is
important to have independent evidence that MT surrounds play a role in
image segmentation. Here we present evidence that supports such a
claim. Specifically, we show that MT neurons are sensitive to disparity
in the surround, and the effect of disparity in the surround is such
that firing rates increase when disparity in the surround is different
from the disparity in the center. This suggests that MT surrounds could
be used to detect image discontinuities, not only on the basis of
contrasting motions but also on the basis of contrasting depths.
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MATERIALS AND METHODS |
Preparation of animals. Studies were performed with
two behaving, male rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta). Each was
chronically fitted with a stainless steel head post for head
immobilization, a lucite chamber for mounting an electrode microdrive,
and a scleral search coil for monitoring eye position (Judge et al.,
1980 ). Results were similar for the two animals and were pooled for the present analysis.
All procedures with animals were approved by the Caltech Institutional
Animal Care and Use Committee.
Stimuli and tasks. Monkeys were seated in a dark or dimly
lit room, 57 cm from a cathode ray tube display. The monitor was driven
by a Number Nine Pepper SGT graphics board with a refresh rate of 60 Hz, housed in an AST 386 personal computer. Stimuli were stored on a
fixed disk as 1 sec (i.e., 60 frame) movies and then loaded into the
memory of the graphics board before each block of trials began (see
below). The same graphics system was used to generate rectangular bars
for receptive field mapping.
All of our stimuli were variations of a circular random dot pattern on
a dark background. The intensity of individual dots was ~1 foot
lambert when viewed through colored filters (see below). Dots moved
linearly at 6°/sec across a 4° diameter circular area on the
screen. When a given dot disappeared from the circle, it was
"wrapped" around and reappeared at the opposite edge, thus maintaining constant dot density. To minimize flicker, all dots remained visible for the duration of the stimulus (1 sec). All patterns
contained 64 randomly positioned dots.
Each dot was represented with a pair of colored dots, one red and one
green, each 0.056° wide (1 pixel). These colored pairs were viewed
through colored filters so that each dot was only seen by a single eye.
The two members of each dot pair could then be separated horizontally
to create a retinal disparity, giving the illusion of depth. When
disparity was zero, a single yellow dot (i.e., a mixture of red and
green) was displayed. Filters were Kodak Wratten dark red (No. 29) and
dark green (No. 61). Screen intensities of the red and green colors
were adjusted so that their intensities were equal when viewed through
these filters. Although both filters were quite dark, crossover could
not be prevented entirely; i.e., it was possible to see some red
through the green filter and vice versa. However, crossover was <10%
for both filters and was clearly insufficient to disrupt the disparity tuning of MT neurons (see Results).
For each isolated neuron, three "blocks," or groups of tests, were
performed using variations of the basic stimulus described above.
Within a given block, all stimuli (or pairs of stimuli, as explained
below) were pseudorandomly interleaved. The first two blocks measured
response properties of the receptive field center. In the first block,
we measured the neuron's direction tuning by showing dots moving in
eight different directions (0, 45, ... , 315°). In this test, all
dots were at zero disparity. In the second block, we measured the
neuron's disparity tuning by showing dots at nine different
disparities ( 0.8, 0.6, ... , 0.8°). In this block, all dots
moved in the neuron's preferred direction (determined in the first
block).
In the third block, we measured the effects of motion in the surround.
Here, we placed one moving pattern in the receptive field center, and
three patterns in the surround (Fig. 1).
The center pattern moved in the neuron's preferred direction and at its preferred disparity (both defined for the center). The three surround patterns were identical to each other, but as a group had
different directions (same or opposite vs center) and different disparities ( 0.8°-0.8°) on different trials. We also tested the central pattern by itself (no surround stimuli) and surround patterns by themselves (no center stimulus; see Results). These controls were
interleaved with the main stimuli.

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Figure 1.
Disparity effects in the MT surround were measured
by placing a moving random dot pattern in the receptive field center
and three moving patterns in the surround. The central pattern was
always the same, moving in the preferred direction and at the preferred
disparity (as defined for the center). The opposing arrows
in the surround patterns are meant to indicate that these patterns
moved either in the same direction as the center, or in the opposite
direction, on different trials (but not simultaneously in both
directions). Also, surround patterns were shown at different
disparities on different trials. All three surround patterns were
identical to each other; i.e., on a given trial they moved in the same
direction and had the same disparity (so they appeared to be in the
same depth plane).
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Surround patterns were placed in a triangular configuration as shown in
Figure 1. The three patterns were offset vertically, with the middle
pattern at the same height as the central stimulus. For a classical
receptive field with radius r, the surround patterns were
placed approximately r degrees from the outer edge of the classical field. The eccentricity of the receptive fields averaged 6.2 ± 3.4° (mean ± SD), and their diameter was 7.6 ± 2.9°. Surround patterns were on average 1.2 ± 0.5 r units from the edge of the classical field.
All trials had the following structure. First, the monkey was
given 1 sec to obtain a fixation target. The target was initially defined within a large (30°) window. After fixating the target, the
monkey was given 500 msec to stabilize his gaze, after which the window
collapsed down to 3°. The monkey was required to hold his gaze within
this window for the remainder of the trial. Because only one eye
position was measured, the monkey's fixation depth (vergence) could
not be calculated. However, the stimuli never overlapped the fixation
point, and monkeys were not required to attend to the stimuli, so it is
unlikely that the disparity of the stimuli strongly affected the
animals' vergence. In a recent study in which vergence was measured,
fixation depth remained remarkably constant (trial-to-trial SD of
0.07°) while a monkey viewed, and in that experiment attended to,
similar stimuli at similar eccentricities (Bradley et al., 1998 ).
After the 500 msec gaze stabilization period, the monkey continued to
fixate for another 3200 msec, during which time two visual stimuli were
shown. This first stimulus lasted 1 sec, followed by a 1 sec pause and
then another 1 sec stimulus. The purpose of this two-stimulus design
was simply to maximize data collection for a given number of
trials.
For testing direction selectivity, opposite directions were shown in
the two stimulus segments of a given trial. For testing disparity
selectivity, adjacent disparity classes were shown (e.g., 0.8°,
0.6°). Thus, although stimulus pairs were pseudorandomly interleaved, the sequence of stimulus segments within a given pair was
fixed (because of software limitations), and this could create an
ordering effect within each pair. Therefore, in 110 cells, we
reassessed direction tuning by showing the preferred-antipreferred direction pair in random order. Indices of directionality (see below)
were the same, whether the sequence was preferred then antipreferred or
antipreferred then preferred (median 0.98 and 0.98, respectively;
n = 110), suggesting that the order of stimuli within a
pair did not strongly affect direction tuning.
Similar controls were not performed for disparity tuning. However,
because adjacent disparity levels were shown in each pair, an ordering
effect if it occurred would mainly affect the relative responses
within each pair, without substantially changing the overall shape of
the disparity tuning curve. Because MT neurons are broadly tuned for
disparity (Maunsell and Van Essen, 1983b ), it is mainly this general
shape that concerns us.
For testing surround effects, the two stimulus segments for a given
trial consisted of opposite directions in the surround. In this case,
however, the order of stimuli within each pair was randomized for the
majority of cells (110/130), and data corresponding to opposite-order
pairs were pooled to average out potential order effects. Also, data
from all cells (n = 130) were analyzed with a two-way
ANOVA, which accounted for direction and disparity (opposite orders
pooled), and a second analysis was performed for the random-order subset (n = 110) with a three-way ANOVA, which
accounted for direction, disparity, and order (as well as all
first-order interactions). The results pertaining to direction and
disparity effects, and the interaction between them, were the same in
both cases (see Tables 1, 3), so
opposite-order trials were pooled and not treated further in this
analysis.
Recording procedure. Neurons were accessed on long,
dorsoventral penetrations with tungsten microelectrodes. The electrodes were advanced with a Fred Haer (FHC) chronic microdrive system and
advanced through stainless steel guide tubes that penetrated the dura.
Area MT was generally located ~10 mm beneath the cortical surface and
identified on the basis of physiological properties (e.g., direction
tuning, disparity tuning, direction opponency), receptive field size,
and consistent topographical organization.
When a cell was isolated, its receptive field was mapped by dragging a
bar or dot pattern around the screen with a digital mouse while the
monkey performed a fixation task. Cell activity was monitored on-line
by amplifying electrode potentials on a portable stereo. When
collecting data, a window discriminator was used to generate a
transistor to transistor logic (TTL) impulse for each action potential
detected, and the time of this impulse was recorded on a digital
computer. Cell firing rates could thus be assessed by counting the
number of spikes registered within a given time interval. Data were
collected with an 80486-based personal computer. This data collection
computer was also used to monitor eye position, administer rewards for
successful trials, and send commands to the graphics computer (see
above) to start and stop stimulus presentation.
General data analysis. Neural responses were expressed as
the mean firing rate (spikes/second) over the last 800 msec of the 1 sec stimulus periods. These raw responses were adjusted for the
baseline activity (of a given cell) by subtracting the firing rate that
occurred in the absence of any stimulus (background). All calculations
were based on these baseline-adjusted firing rates.
Most of our statistical tests were performed in terms of a generalized
linear model (GLM), which handles ANOVA and regression problems within
the framework of linear least-squares regression (Fox, 1997 ). For
regression problems (quantitative independent variables), the GLM works
like a conventional linear regression, but for ANOVA (discrete
independent variables), the GLM uses "dummy" variables (0 or 1) to
allow discrete effects to be included in the linear regression
equation. The main advantage of GLM over conventional ANOVA and
regression techniques is that GLM allows tests of "mixed" models,
which include both quantitative and discrete independent variables.
Several implementations of the GLM were used to test hypotheses about
the data. To test the effects of disparity in the receptive field
center, the GLM was configured as a one-way ANOVA, which models
responses as a function of a single, discrete variable (disparity). To
test the simultaneous effects of direction and disparity in the
surround, we used a two-way ANOVA, with direction and disparity as the
discrete independent variables.
A third form of the GLM was used to compare the shapes of
disparity-tuning curves. For example, to compare disparity tuning in
the receptive field center with disparity tuning in the surround, we
plotted the response to a particular disparity in the center versus the
response to the same disparity in the surround (this was possible
because the same disparity values were tested in the center and the
surround). A positive slope for this relationship implies that the two
curves have similar shapes, whereas a negative slope implies opposite
(inverted) shapes (see Fig. 8). This slope was calculated with a GLM
configured as a simple linear regression, where the dependent variable
was the response to a particular disparity in the surround, and the
(quantitative) independent variable was the response to the same
disparity in the center. This simple regression was performed either by
itself or as part of a mixed-model GLM, which also included a discrete
variable to represent the effect of direction (thus one quantitative
and one discrete independent variable). Similar models were used to compare disparity tuning curves for opposite directions in the surround. All GLM methods used in this analysis are explained in detail
in the .
To identify instances where the response to a specific
stimulus (i.e., to a given direction and disparity in the surround) was
significantly higher or lower than the response to the center pattern
by itself, we performed individual t tests between the center-alone response and the responses to all 18 surround stimuli. Because repeated t tests collectively have a high
false-positive error rate, we performed them only on neurons showing
significant surround effects in the two-way ANOVA treatment discussed
above. In other words, by limiting ourselves to neurons shown by ANOVA to have significant surround effects, we contain the high
false-positive rate associated with multiple t tests,
without having to use low p values on the individual tests,
which decreases their power (Fisher's protected t test)
(Carmer and Swanson, 1973 ).
To quantify the strength of direction tuning in a given neuron, we
calculated the "direction index," defined as
DI = (P AP)/(P + AP), where P
is the response to motion in the preferred direction, and AP
is the response to motion in the antipreferred (opposite) direction
(Snowden et al., 1991 ). DI = 0 means the response was the same for preferred and antipreferred directions, DI = 1 means no response to the antipreferred
direction, and DI > 1 means the response was
actually suppressed (below baseline) for the antipreferred
direction.
An index of disparity tuning strength was also calculated; in this case
we used the maximum and minimum responses from the disparity tuning
curve, and the index was (max min)/(max + min).
Significance tests were performed at the = 0.05 level. All ± symbols refer to SE, except where stated otherwise.
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RESULTS |
A total of 130 MT neurons from two monkeys were tested for
disparity tuning in the surround. All of these were also tested for
direction and disparity tuning in the center (see below), but in a few
instances the center-disparity tuning data were not saved. The sample
sizes for the various calculations below thus range from 127 to 130 neurons.
Direction and disparity effects in the receptive field center
After isolating each neuron and mapping its receptive field, we
centered a random dot pattern in the receptive field and measured responses to various directions of motion. Most of the isolated cells
showed a strong preference for a particular direction, as is
characteristic of MT (Dubner and Zeki, 1971 ; Zeki, 1974 ; Maunsell and
Van Essen, 1983a ). This is called the "preferred" direction, and
the opposite direction is called "antipreferred." The strength of
the neurons' direction preference is reflected in the direction index
(see Materials and Methods), whose median was 0.97 in the sample
population (n = 130). The proximity of this value to 1 means that responses to the antipreferred direction were generally small compared with responses to the preferred direction.
Most of the neurons studied were also sensitive to disparity in the
receptive field center, confirming earlier reports (Maunsell and Van
Essen, 1983b ; Bradley et al., 1995 ). This was demonstrated by showing a
preferred-direction pattern at nine different disparities ( 0.8° to
0.8°). The majority of the cells in our sample (82%) responded
differently to different disparities (p < 0.05, one-way ANOVA). An index of disparity tuning strength was calculated
analogously to the direction index (see Materials and Methods). The
median of this index was 0.38 in the sample as a whole
(n = 127).
Figure 2 shows the distribution of
neurons according to the preferred depth of their receptive field
center. Neurons were classified as near-tuned if their peak response
occurred at disparities between 0.8° and 0.4°, far-tuned for
peaks between 0.4° and 0.8°, and fixation-tuned (i.e., preferring
depths near the fixation point) for peaks between 0.2° and 0.2°.
The distribution of these three types shows a decreasing frequency
going from near-tuned to far-tuned (left to right on the graph).
Therefore, there is a bias in macaque MT for stimuli appearing in the
foreground. We will see below that the opposite bias exists in the
surround.

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Figure 2.
Disparity effects in the classical MT receptive
field. The left panel shows an example of disparity tuning
in an MT neuron. The points and error bars are means ± SE. The
firing rate was strong at negative (near) disparities, and in this
example, nil at positive (far) disparities. The right panel
shows the distribution of preferred disparities for the entire neuron
sample (n = 127). Neurons were classified as
near-tuned, far-tuned, or fixation-tuned, depending on the disparity at
which the peak response occurred (see Results). The distribution shows
that near-tuned cells were more common than fixation-tuned or far-tuned
cells.
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Placement of surround stimuli
The central (classical) receptive field of each neuron was mapped
by dragging a bar or dot pattern around the screen to delimit the
region in which the neuron reacted to the stimulus. Surround stimuli
were subsequently placed outside this region, at distance of
~r degrees from the edge of the classical field, where
r is the estimated radius of the classical field. To be
certain that surround stimuli were outside the central field, we
measured responses to surround patterns in the absence of a central
stimulus. Mean responses for all cells were 5 ± 1 and 1 ± 1 spikes/sec when the surround patterns moved in the center's preferred
and antipreferred direction, respectively. For comparison, mean
responses to a central pattern by itself were 57 ± 4 and 4 ± 2 spikes/sec, respectively, for the preferred and antipreferred
direction. This suggests that surround patterns were not always
completely outside the classical field, because weak responses were
obtained and direction preferences tended to resemble those in the
center. However, the analyses below clearly show that stimuli in this
"surround" region strongly suppress responses to central stimuli,
and this suppression is strongest when the surround patterns move in
the center's preferred direction (i.e., responses are higher when
surround patterns go in the center's antipreferred
direction), leaving little doubt that the surround patterns were in an
antagonistic region. These findings suggest that the classical field
and the antagonistic surround overlap somewhat.
Disparity tuning in the MT surround
Disparity tuning in the MT surround was studied, in a given cell,
by holding a central pattern at the neuron's preferred disparity while
varying the disparity of stimuli in the surround (Fig. 1). This is
analogous to the way disparity tuning was measured in the center,
except that surround patterns were shown moving in two different
directions (same or opposite relative to center). Therefore, two
disparity tuning curves were generated for each MT surround. Recall
that the center pattern was always shown with the preferred direction
and disparity (as defined for the center).
Figure 3 shows the distribution of
preferred depths in the surround. As with our analysis of the center
(see above), cells were classified as near-, far-, or fixation-tuned,
judging from the effects of surround disparity on the center response.
The distribution of the three tuning types (Fig. 3) shows an increasing prevalence going from near- to far-tuned; i.e., the most common cell
responded best to far disparities in the surround. This implies that MT
neurons tend to prefer background (far) motion in the surround. This is
opposite to the center, where foreground (near) motion typically causes
the strongest response (Fig. 2). We will show below that this dichotomy
stems from a more general phenomenon, which is that disparity effects
in the center and the surround are usually opposite; that
is, the disparities that cause the strongest excitation in the center
tend to cause the strongest suppression in the surround.

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Figure 3.
Disparity effects in the receptive field surround.
The left panel shows an example based on a single MT neuron.
Points and error bars are means ± SE. The two tuning curves were
generated while holding a central pattern at a fixed disparity (the
preferred disparity for the center). Closed circles show
data for surround patterns moving in the same direction as the center
pattern; open circles indicate opposite-direction surrounds.
For both directions, firing rates increase as surround disparities go
from negative to positive (near to far). However, firing rates were
higher overall for opposite-direction surrounds, as was typically the
case. The right panels show the distribution of preferred
disparities in the surround. For both same- and opposite-direction
surrounds, the cells tend to prefer far disparities.
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Simultaneous analysis of direction and disparity effects in the
MT surround
Because the various combinations of direction and disparity in the
surround were interleaved, the effects of direction and disparity could
be evaluated simultaneously with a two-way ANOVA. This analysis,
implemented under the GLM, is described in the and illustrated
schematically in Figure 5.
Briefly, the ANOVA tries to explain the response to a given stimulus in
the surround as the sum of four separate effects, or
parameters: (1) the overall effect, which is the mean response for all
stimuli in the surround, plus (2) the specific effect of the surround
stimulus's direction, plus (3) the specific effect of the surround
stimulus's disparity, plus (4) the "conditional" effect, which is
the interaction between direction and disparity. These effects were
tested separately with incremental F tests ( = 0.05),
allowing us to assign each cell to one of five categories.
Cells with additive direction and disparity effects. In many
cells, responses were significantly affected by both direction and
disparity in the surround, and there was no significant interaction. This implies that the direction and disparity effects were parallel, or
additive.
Figure 4A shows an
example of a neuron with additive direction and disparity effects. In
this and the other panels of the figure, the points and error bars
represent the responses to various directions and disparities in the
surround, and the dashed horizontal line represents the response to the
central pattern by itself. Each panel shows two disparity-tuning
curves, one for each direction. The shift between the curves is the
effect of direction, whereas the span of the curves represents the
effect of disparity (note that the model does not assume a linear
relationship between the response and the independent variables,
direction and disparity; however, it is linear with respect to its
parameters or effects).

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Figure 4.
Examples of the different cell types, as
classified by two-way ANOVA. Each panel shows data from a
representative cell. In all panels, points and error bars represent
means ± SE, and the dashed horizontal line represents
the mean response to the central pattern by itself. Closed
circles represent surround patterns moving in the same direction
as the central pattern; open circles represent
opposite-direction surrounds. Baseline firing rates were not
subtracted before graphing the data. A, An additive effect,
where direction and disparity both influence the firing rate, but each
effect is largely independent of the other. B, Only a
direction effect. The opposite-direction surrounds produce a higher
response than same-direction surrounds, but there is no appreciable
effect of disparity; i.e., the curves are flat. C, Only a
disparity effect. For both surround directions, responses increase as
disparities go from negative to positive, but there is no significant
offset between curves representing same- and opposite-direction
surrounds. D, An interactive effect. Both direction and
disparity affect the firing rate, but the magnitude of the direction
effect depends on disparity and vice versa. E, A nonspecific
effect. Responses are suppressed, overall, compared with the response
to the central pattern by itself (dashed horizontal line),
but responses are roughly constant for different directions and
disparities. F, No effect. All responses, regardless of
direction or disparity, are roughly equal to the response to the
central pattern by itself.
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In "additive" cells such as the one shown in Figure
4A, the effect of disparity is the same for both
directions, and equivalently the effect of direction is the same for
all disparities. Graphically, this means that the two disparity-tuning
curves have the same shape (constant disparity effect) and that the
curves are offset by a constant amount (constant direction effect). The
two effects are thus additive, and the difference between the lowest
point on the lower curve and the highest point on the higher curve
represents the total effect of direction and disparity. Figure
5 illustrates this principle.

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Figure 5.
Schematic showing how two-way ANOVA tries to
explain responses by adding the effects of direction and disparity.
Each curve represents the disparity tuning profile for a given
direction (same or opposite with respect to the central pattern). The
disparity effect is seen as the range of responses going from the base
to the peak of a given tuning curve, and the direction effect is seen
as the vertical offset between the curves. In this example, it is
assumed that there is no interaction; i.e., the two curves are
parallel. In the absence of an interaction, the total effect is simply
the sum of the direction and disparity effects.
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Thirty of 130 (23%) of the neurons showed significant, additive
direction and disparity effects. For these cells, it is useful to
compute the total response range associated with direction and
disparity, because this range can be decomposed into the range attributable to direction plus the range attributable to disparity. For
this calculation, we normalized responses from each cell to the overall
mean response (across all surround stimuli) for that cell. In the
following, effect magnitudes are reported as percentages of this
overall mean.
The effect of direction averaged 52 ± 10%; that is, surround
disparity-tuning curves were offset by 52%, on average, as a function
of different directions in the surround. In the majority of cases
(23/30; 77%), this offset was such that responses to opposite-direction surrounds (relative to center) were higher than
responses to same-direction surrounds (e.g., Fig.
4A). The effect of disparity, represented by the span
of each disparity-tuning curve (recall that the two curves are
identical), averaged 67 ± 20%. The combined effect of direction
and disparity averaged 119%; that is, for a hypothetical neuron with
mean firing = 100, the response varied from 41 to 160, on average,
as a result of changing direction and disparity in the surround.
The range estimates provide an intuitive measure of the size of
direction and disparity effects. However, because nine disparity values
were tested, compared with only two directions, the range attributable
to disparity tends to be inflated. For comparative purposes, a more
appropriate measure is R2, the portion of
variance attributable to each factor, which does not depend on the
number of values tested. Direction and disparity had comparable
R2 (0.25 ± 0.04 and 0.18 ± 0.02, respectively), accounting for roughly one-fifth to one-quarter of
the variance each (see Table 2).
Cells with only direction effects. Forty-four of 130 (34%)
of the cells showed significant effects of direction in the surround, but no effect of disparity, and no direction-disparity interaction. Figure 4B shows an example. The disparity-tuning
curves are flat (no disparity effect), but they are offset by the
effect of direction. The R2 of the
direction effect in these cells averaged 0.22 ± 0.03 (Table 2).
Cells with only disparity effects. A small number of cells
(12/130; 9%) showed significant effects of disparity, but no effect of
direction and no direction-disparity interaction. Figure 4C shows an example. In this case, the two disparity-tuning curves are
roughly superimposed, implying no effect of direction, but both curves
span an appreciable response range. The
R2 of the disparity effect in these cells
averaged 0.20 ± 0.01 (Table 2).
Cells with interacting direction and disparity effects. Only
14/130 (11%) of the cells showed a significant interaction between direction and disparity effects; that is, both direction and disparity affected the firing rate, but the effect of one depended on the other.
Figure 4D shows an example. That the two
disparity-tuning curves are not parallel means the effect of direction
was different for different disparities. By the same token, the
different shape of the two disparity-tuning curves means the effect of
disparity was different for different directions. In this example, the
effect of direction was strongest at negative disparities. The mean
R2 of the interaction effect was
0.13 ± 0.02; i.e., approximately half the values for direction
and disparity "main" effects (see above).
When direction and disparity effects interact, it is pertinent to ask
whether the effects simply change in magnitude or whether they actually
reverse. For example, if the two disparity-tuning curves were to cross
each other, this would mean that direction had opposite effects at
different disparities (on either side of the crossover point). Figure
6 (top) illustrates this point. For each
"interaction" cell, we compared the responses to the two directions
in the surround (t test, p < 0.05) for each
value of disparity (i.e., one t test of same vs. opposite
direction for each of the nine disparities). Only one neuron showed
both a significantly positive difference and a significantly
negative difference, implying that the direction effect had reversed at different disparities. All of the remaining 13 cells also showed significant differences (4 ± 1 significant differences on
average), but in a given cell these differences were always of the same polarity (+ or ). Therefore, even when direction and disparity interact, the direction effect changes quantitatively but not qualitatively; that is, it changes in magnitude but (with one exception) does not reverse.

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Figure 6.
Schematic showing how direction effects could
reverse at different disparities (top), and how disparity
effects could reverse for different directions (bottom). For
a disparity reversal, we would see increases in one curve associated
with decreases in the other curve and vice versa. For a direction
reversal, the order of responses corresponding to the two surround
directions would be opposite at different disparities.
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It is also possible that disparity effects could reverse at different
directions. Graphically, this would translate into changes in the
disparity-tuning curve for one direction being mirrored by opposite
changes in the disparity-tuning curve for the other direction (Fig. 6,
bottom). As explained in Materials and Methods, we can test
for this by plotting one curve as a function of the other (see Fig. 8).
The slope of this relationship (calculated by regression) tends to be
negative when the curves have opposite shapes and positive when the
curves have similar shapes. Only 4 of the 14 cells with interaction
showed a significant relationship (slope) between the two
disparity-tuning curves, and only two of the four significant slopes
were negative. Therefore, there was no consistent reversal of the
disparity effect for different directions in the surround.
When an interaction exists, it is meaningless to calculate "the"
magnitude of the direction and disparity effects, because these effects
are not constant. However, it is important to understand that by virtue
of the direction-disparity interaction, these cells were necessarily
affected by both direction and disparity in the surround.
Cells with nonspecific surround effects. In a small number
of cells (9/130), responses were unaffected by surround direction or
disparity (or their interaction), but the mean response was nevertheless significantly different in the presence of surround stimuli compared with their absence (mean of all surround responses tested against the mean response to the center pattern alone). These
cells were thus sensitive to surround motion without being specifically
affected by the direction or disparity of the surround stimulus. Figure
4E shows an example.
Cells with no surround effect. The remaining 21/130 cells
(16%) were unaffected by stimuli in the surround, regardless of their
direction or disparity (all tests described above were nonsignificant). These cells are tentatively classified as not having a surround, although it is possible that they did have surrounds but effects were
too small or variable to detect.
Summary of two-way ANOVA results
Table 1 summarizes the ANOVA results. Overall, responses in
109/130 cells (84%) depended significantly on the type and/or presence
of stimuli in the surround. Among these, 56/109 (52%) were
significantly affected by the disparity of surround stimuli (with or
without a concomitant effect of direction). Similarly, 88/109 (81%)
were significantly affected by direction in the surround (with or
without a concomitant effect of disparity). Thus, most cells (100/109;
92%) showing any surround effect were sensitive to
direction or disparity or both in the surround.
Many cells (44/109; 40%) showed both direction and disparity effects.
In most of these (30/44), the two effects were additive. In a smaller
number (14/44), the effects interacted; that is, the effect of
direction depended on disparity, and vice versa. However, even in cells
with significant interactions, there was little evidence that either
effect reversed, and the interaction effects accounted for a relatively
small portion of the total variance (Table
2). The low occurrence and magnitude of
interaction effects suggest that the effects of direction and disparity
in the MT surround for the most part are independent.
Recall that two stimuli, with identical disparities but opposite
directions, were shown on each trial, and in most cells (110/130) the
order of the two directions was randomized to cancel potential stimulus-order effects. However, we also performed a three-way ANOVA in
which the order of the two directions in each pair was taken into
account, rather than pooled as in the preceding analysis. Approximately
one-half of the cells showed a significant order effect (Table
3), such that the second response was on
average 15 ± 6% greater than the first. The significance of this
is unclear. However, the results pertaining to direction and disparity
were unchanged; that is, the percentages of cells showing additive, interactive, direction-only, and disparity-only effects (Table 3) were
nearly identical to the percentages reported for pooled data (Table 1).
This is not surprising given that in most cells (110/130) stimulus
order was orthogonal to direction and disparity; that is, both stimulus
orders were tested for every combination of direction and disparity.
This means that although the two-way ANOVA did not take stimulus order
into account (as opposed to the three-way, which did), the estimated
effects of direction and disparity still could not have been biased,
because potential order effects (including interactions with direction
and disparity) were forced to average out. On the other hand, to the
extent that stimulus order did have an effect, excluding it from the
model (as in the two-way ANOVA) could decrease statistical power by increasing the amount of unexplained variance. However, given the
similarity of the two- and three-way results, the inclusion or
exclusion of stimulus order from the ANOVA did not make a substantial difference.
Suppression versus facilitation
The ANOVA discussed above determines which cells are affected by
movement in the surround and how much they are affected. In this
section we determine how often surround stimuli caused responses to
increase (excitatory effects) or decrease (suppressive effects) in
relation to the response to a central stimulus by itself.
In the 109 neurons showing significant surround effects in the two-way
ANOVA, we t tested individual responses to different stimuli
in the surround against the response to a center pattern by itself
(Fig. 7). In 85 of these (78%), the
response was significantly lower, for at least one of the
surround stimuli, than the response to the center pattern alone. Only
in 30 cells (28%) was there at least one response significantly higher
than the response to the center alone. Therefore, surround effects in
MT were generally suppressive.

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Figure 7.
Example of specific suppressive and excitatory
effects in a given neuron. Points and error bars represent mean
responses ± SE, and the dashed horizontal line
represents the mean response to the central pattern by itself. Each
asterisk represents a significant difference
(p < 0.05, t test) between the
response in question and the response to the central pattern alone. For
same-direction surrounds (solid circles), all nine responses
were significantly suppressed. For opposite-direction surrounds, three
of the nine responses were significantly facilitated.
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This preponderance of suppressive effects over excitatory effects was
true for both same- and opposite-direction surrounds, but it was most
pronounced for same-direction surrounds. Thus, taking data separately
for same- and opposite-direction surrounds, the ratio of suppressive to
excitatory effects was greater for same-direction surrounds (75:11,
i.e., ~7:1) than for opposite-direction surrounds (51:25, i.e.,
~2:1). Therefore, surround patterns in general were more likely to
suppress than excite, and they were particularly likely to suppress
(and less likely to excite) when center and surround motion occurred in
the same direction.
Center versus surround disparity effects
In the preceding sections we discussed the effects of direction
and disparity in the surround and compared responses to a central
stimulus with and without stimuli in the surround. In this section we
compare disparity effects between the center and the surround.
The basic analysis is illustrated in Figure
8. Because the same nine disparities were
used to measure disparity tuning in the center and the surround, we can
plot, for a given cell, the mean response to each disparity in the
center versus the mean response to the same disparity in the surround
(recall that surround disparity tuning is measured with the central
pattern held at a fixed disparity). If the slope of this relationship
is positive, the two disparity-tuning curves must have similar shapes.
On the other hand, if the slope is negative, the two curve shapes are inverted, or vertically mirror-imaged. If the slope is insignificant (neither positive nor negative), neither conclusion is drawn.

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Figure 8.
Schematic illustrating how regression can be used
to compare the shapes of disparity tuning curves. A and
B represent disparity tuning curves under two different
conditions. C plots the responses from B
(ordinate) against the responses from A (abscissa). Because
the curves in A and B have vertically opposite
(inverted) shapes, the slope in C is negative. If instead
their shapes were similar, the slope in C would be positive.
x is disparity, Y is the response to a given
disparity in the center, and Z is the response to a given
disparity in the surround. Because Y = f(x) (A) and Z = f(x) (B) were measured at the
same x values (disparities), Z = f(Y), the relationship between
center and surround tuning (C) is known for the
measured set of x values.
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For a given cell, the slope of the relationship between center and
surround disparity tuning was calculated for each of the two surround
directions. These slopes were calculated independently, but
simultaneously, with a GLM configured as a multiple
regression that includes a dummy variable to represent direction. This
model is detailed in the .
Briefly, the model calculates the linear relationship, or slope,
between disparity tuning in the center and disparity tuning in the
surround, once for same-direction surrounds and once for opposite-direction surrounds (recall that "same" and "opposite" are relative to center). Although the slopes are calculated
independently for the two surround directions, the model also computes
a direction-slope interaction term that tells whether the two slopes
are different for the different surround directions. (Note that in the
previous section we compared disparity-tuning curves between different directions in the surround, whereas here we are comparing
disparity-tuning curves between the center and the surround.)
In this analysis, we are interested in (1) the slope of the
relationship between center and surround disparity tuning and (2) how
that slope differs for opposite directions in the surround. The results
of the multiple regression thus allow the following classification
(note that this classification is separate from the classification
described in the previous section).
Cells with opposite center and surround disparity tuning.
Disparity tuning data for both the center and surround were collected in 127 cells. In 30/127 of these (24%), there was a significant, negative relationship between the disparity tuning in the center and
the disparity tuning in the surround. Figure
9A-C shows an example. Figure
9A shows the disparity tuning for the center of the
receptive field (i.e., no surround stimuli). The neuron clearly responded best to negative (near) disparities. Figure 9B
shows the same neuron's disparity tuning in the surround. Here, the disparity of the central pattern was held at 0.8° (the preferred disparity for the center), whereas the disparity of the patterns in the
surround was varied. The two curves represent opposite directions in
the surround. Both curves suggest that the neuron responded best when
the surround patterns were at positive disparities. The relationship
between center and surround disparity tuning is shown in Figure
9C. Each of the slanted lines (one for each surround
direction) represents the regression fit to the data (points are the
actual data). The negative slope of these relationships means that
disparity effects were opposite in the center and the surround; that
is, the disparities that caused the greatest excitation in the center
tended to cause the greatest suppression in the surround. This was true
for both surround directions.

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Figure 9.
Relationship between disparity tuning in the
center and the surround. All panels, open and closed
circles represent opposite- and same-direction surrounds (relative
to center). A-C, Data from a neuron with opposite disparity
tuning in the center and surround. A, Disparity tuning for
the center of the receptive field. B, Disparity tuning in
the surround, while holding the central pattern at a constant
disparity. A, B, Points and error bars are mean
responses ± SE. C, Regression of responses to surround
disparities versus responses to center disparities (see Fig. 8). Slopes
were calculated separately for same- and opposite-direction surrounds.
The negative slope in both cases implies that vertical trends were
opposite in the center versus the surround. D-F are
analogous to A-C but show data from a different neuron in
which disparity tuning was similar in the center and the surround (thus
positive slopes in F).
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Neurons in this category did not show a difference between the
regression slopes for the two surround directions (i.e., the direction-slope interaction was insignificant), which implies that the
relationship between disparity tuning in the center and the surround
was the same, regardless of the direction of motion in the surround.
This translates to the slopes of the two relationships being parallel.
A few neurons did show an interaction, however, and they are discussed
later.
Cells with similar center and surround disparity tuning.
Only four cells showed a significant, positive relationship between the
disparity tuning in the center and the disparity tuning in the
surround. Figure 9D-F shows an example. In both the center (D) and the surround (E), responses
tend to increase as disparities go from negative to positive. The slope
of the relationship between center and surround disparity tuning is
thus positive (F), reflecting the similarity of
disparity effects in the center and the surround. Cells in this
category, like the preceding category, did not show a significant
direction-slope interaction, suggesting that the relationship between
center and surround disparity tuning was the same for the two
directions in the surround.
Cells with conditional (interactive) center and surround
disparity tuning. Only 12 cells showed a significant
direction-slope interaction, meaning that the slope of the
relationship between disparity tuning in the center and disparity
tuning in the surround was different for different directions in the
surround. In two-thirds (8/12) of these, the overall slope (the average
of the individual slopes) was negative, implying that the inverse
relationship between center and surround disparity tuning was generally
preserved in this category of cells.
Cells with unrelated center and surround disparity tuning.
The remaining 64% of the neurons (81/127) did not show a significant relationship between disparity tuning in the center and disparity tuning in the surround. However, many of these were insensitive to
disparity in the surround, and some were insensitive to disparity in
the center, so testing the relationship between surround and center
tuning was not meaningful.
If we limit ourselves to the 45 neurons showing significant disparity
effects in the center and in the surround (based on one- and two-way
ANOVAs, above), we find that only 36% (16/45) showed no relationship
between center and surround disparity tuning; that is, two-thirds
(64%, 29/45) showed a significant relationship (20 negative, 0 positive, 9 interactive). Therefore, to the extent that MT receptive
fields sense disparity, there tends to be an inverse relationship
between disparity effects in the center and disparity effects in the
surround.
Even these estimates are conservative, however, because our tests were
predisposed to overlook significant relationships between center and surround disparity tuning. First, regression slopes were
calculated with only nine points (corresponding to nine disparities), so the tests were inherently weak. Second, our tests assumed a linear relationship between center and surround tuning, and
to the extent that the actual relationships were nonlinear, the power of our tests (the ability to detect significant slopes) was reduced. Third, regression assumes that independent variables (in this case the
center response) are measured without error, and to the extent that
error exists, as it did in our case, the power to detect significant
slopes is reduced further. Finally, MT neurons respond best to large
stimuli in the surround (Allman et al., 1985a ,b ). Because our patterns
occupied only a small fraction (5-10%) of the surround, we expect the
effects of these patterns to be small (see also Discussion). This would
further diminish our ability to detect significant center-surround
relationships.
Summary of center-surround interactions
The two-way ANOVA discussed above confirms previous reports that
MT responses are relatively high when center and surround patterns move
in opposite directions and relatively low when they move in the same
direction. Our multiple regression analysis further shows that
responses are relatively high when center and surround stimuli have
different, rather than equal, disparities. Finally, both the ANOVA and
regression analyses suggest that direction and disparity effects are
mainly additive; that is, each variable's effect tends to be
independent of the other. On the basis of these findings, we can make a
simple prediction, which is that responses should be weakest when
center and surround stimuli have the same direction and disparity, and
strongest when center and surround stimuli have different directions
and disparities. In other words, the more the center and surround
stimuli differ, in terms of motion and depth, the better in general
these neurons should respond.
Figure 10 shows that this was indeed
the case. The four bars in the figure represent mean responses
(n = 30, additive cells only) to four basic types of
stimulus: (1) the "worst" stimulus, in which center and surround
patterns have the same direction and disparity; (2) the "best"
stimulus, in which both direction and disparity are different; (3) an
intermediate condition, in which the center and surround see different
directions but the same disparity; and (4) an intermediate condition,
in which the center and surround see the same direction but different
disparities. Because nine disparities were tested, the definition of a
"different" disparity in the surround is an arbitrary choice among
the eight disparities not equal to the disparity in the center. We
chose (among these eight) the disparity giving the strongest response; as such, this analysis represents a best-case scenario.

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Figure 10.
Pooled data from "additive" cells
(n = 30). The dashed horizontal line
represents the response to the central pattern by itself (normalized to
be 100%). Each bar shows mean normalized response, ± SE, for various
combinations of direction and disparity. Responses were typically
lowest (left bar) when center and surround patterns had
different directions and disparities and highest (right bar)
when both direction and disparity were different. The middle
bars show that a difference in direction or disparity
was sufficient to restore firing to the unsuppressed rate (i.e., not
different from 100% of the center-alone response).
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The mean responses plotted in Figure 10 are normalized on a
cell-by-cell basis to the response to the center pattern by itself. Thus we see that the "worst" stimulus suppresses activity by 36%, the intermediate stimuli give responses comparable to the center alone,
and the "best" stimulus facilitates activity by 30%. Therefore, to
the extent that the center and surround see different directions and/or
depths, MT responses tend to increase.
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DISCUSSION |
These experiments were performed to test the effects of disparity
in the MT receptive field surround. MT neurons are known to be
selective for disparity in their "classical" (central) receptive field (Maunsell and Van Essen, 1983b ), but the effects of disparity in
the surround have not been measured previously. We did so by showing
surround patterns at variable disparity while holding a central pattern
at a fixed disparity. In roughly half the neurons exhibiting a
surround, responses were significantly modulated by disparity in the
surround. Most of these were also affected by the direction of the
surround patterns, and the direction and disparity effects were
generally additive or independent. The magnitudes of the direction and
disparity effects were comparable.
As we mentioned earlier, Allman et al. (1985a) showed that MT neurons
tend to be suppressed by motion in the surround, but this suppression
is relaxed when the speed or direction of surround motion is different
from that in the center. Therefore, a requirement for strong activity
is that receptive fields roughly coincide with discontinuities of the
velocity field (note that the absence of motion in the surround
represents a discontinuity when there is motion in the center). Such
discontinuities are common, of course, near the edges of moving
objects. Therefore, the velocity-antagonism of MT surrounds could act
as a simple mechanism for locating image discontinuities (Allman et
al., 1985b ). This idea is supported by the present findings, which show
that MT activities tend to increase as center and surround disparities
become increasingly different. Again, this is consistent with an MT
mechanism that heightens responses in the presence of image
discontinuities.
It is important to detect such discontinuities, because we must be able
to comprehend images that have several moving parts. Therefore, images
must be divided into segments to be processed separately (Braddick,
1993 ; Stoner and Albright, 1993 ). These segments could be chosen
arbitrarily, and image motion could be represented in terms of the
average motion in each segment. However, if the segments are too large,
more than one object could appear in a given segment, and the average
motion in this segment would be meaningless. On the other hand, if the
segments are too small, motion estimates become confounded with the
orientation of edges [the aperture problem (Movshon et al., 1985 )].
However, if each separately moving part of the image is defined as a
segment, then the average motion in each segment is meaningful it is
the coherent movement of the object and different segments would
reflect the movement of separate objects. Therefore, object-based
segmentation is a crucial part of motion processing.
Surrounds are not necessarily required for image segmentation. In
situations in which our eyes are still and only a single object moves
before us, the classical MT receptive field may be sufficient to
calculate the object's velocity and identify where it is. MT receptive
fields are topographically organized and small enough (typically with
diameter = distance to fovea) to give at least coarse information
about stimulus location (Maunsell and Van Essen, 1983a ). Therefore, the
activity of a given neuron can be thought of as reflecting the
probability that the stimulus location coincides with that
neuron's receptive field position (and that the stimulus velocity
matches that neurons' preferred velocity).
In many cases, however, the motion of an object may occur
simultaneously with other motions on the retina. For example, several objects may be moving in different parts of the image, or the entire
image may be moving (on the retina) because the eye is moving. Let us
assume that an observer makes a smooth-pursuit eye movement from right
to left, either because he is tracking a moving object, or because he
is moving while tracking a stationary object (Fig.
11). In that case the retina sees a
rightward movement of the entire scene, which we will refer to as the
"background." For simplicity, we will assume that the background is
a large, frontoparallel surface.

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Figure 11.
Hypothetical situation showing why surrounds must
be antagonistic to the center in terms of direction, speed,
and disparity to reliably detect object movement relative to
background. An observer is assumed to be moving along a straight path
while tracking a stationary object off to the left. This causes the
background to move right across the retina. An object moving relative
to background will always create a differential velocity on the retina,
provided it is close to the background (top panels). If the
object moves left with substantial speed (top panel),
its retinal motion will be opposite in direction to the background
motion. If it is moving right (middle panel), it will
move in the same direction as the background but at a higher speed.
However, if the object is in the foreground and moving right, its
retinal velocity may match the retinal velocity of the background. In
this case, its disparity must be different from the background, and
this provides a center-surround differential with respect to depth.
Because center-surround interactions in MT are direction-, speed-, and
disparity-antagonistic, any of these three conditions is sufficient to
"unsuppress" neurons with receptive fields centered on the moving
object. In contrast, neurons that see background motion in both the
center and the surround should remain suppressed.
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Under these conditions, to detect the separate movement of the object,
we must distinguish its movement from that of the background. If the
object is close to the background, then its motion relative to the
background will produce a relative motion signal on the retina (Fig.
11). It was shown before that differential direction and speed cues
between the center and the surround cause firing rates to increase
(Allman et al., 1985b ). Because there is likely to be a neuron whose
classical field sees the object and whose surround sees the background,
we can expect its activity to be strong because of the relative motion
it sees between its center and surround. In contrast, neurons with
classical receptive fields centered in other parts of the visual field
would not see a motion differential and should be less activated (or
more suppressed).
There are situations, however, where relative motion fails to
distinguish an object from its background. If the object is in the
foreground, its motion relative to background becomes confounded by a
parallax effect, which makes it appear to move left with respect to the
background (Fig. 11). If the object is actually moving right, it may
move across the retina with the same velocity as the background. In
this case all MT neurons would see the same velocity in their center
and their surround; i.e., the relative motion cue would be lost.
However, this problem can only arise if the object is at a different
depth from the background otherwise it could not be moving relative to
the background and still appear to be moving at the same velocity.
Neurons with center-surround antagonism based on disparity
therefore could identify the object as separate from its background.
This is precisely what our data reveal: even when surround motion has
the same direction and speed as the center, a disparity differential is
sufficient to substantially increase the firing rate (Fig. 10).
Therefore, the disparity-based antagonism of the MT surround is a
critical complement to the antagonism based on direction and speed.
Allman et al. (1985b) , in fact predicted antagonistic disparity tuning
in the MT surround.
The scenario presented above is meant to demonstrate how surrounds that
are antagonistic to the center in terms of direction, speed, and
disparity cause MT firing rates to have predictive value about image
discontinuities. However, two important simplifications were used.
First, we tacitly assume that neurons seeing a center-surround discontinuity are "active," whereas neurons that see uniformity are
"inactive." In reality, we would expect a distribution of activity
whose shape encodes the locations of discontinuities. In this sense, it
is again intuitive to think of each MT neuron's activity as reflecting
the probability that the stimulus matches its velocity, depth, and
spatial tuning.
The second simplification was that of a frontoparallel background. In
natural scenes, the "background" (the bulk of the image) is
commonly a ground plane, which is tilted with respect to the observer.
In this case, different parts of the surround may see different
directions, speeds, and disparities. As a result, it is possible that
the stimulus could match the center in certain parts of the surround
(in terms of velocity and depth) but differ from the center in other
parts of the surround. If so, we might expect the surround stimulus to
have an intermediate effect; i.e., somewhere between being the same as
the center and different from the center. However, Orban and colleagues
(Xiao et al., 1997 ) have found MT surrounds that are specifically tuned
for speed gradients, which are associated with slanted surfaces. This
suggests that MT neurons accomodate different types of background
(e.g., frontoparallel vs slanted) by being specifically selective for them. In other words, center-surround comparisons could be made by
different neurons under different conditions, depending on the
structure of the stimulus that fills the surround. Future studies will
be needed to understand how neurons respond to a slanted surround
stimulus combined with a separate object moving through the center.
The preceding arguments should not be taken to mean that MT surrounds
have a role only in segmentation. Work by Orban and colleagues (Xiao et
al., 1997 ), in fact strongly suggests that these surrounds also play a
role in computing surface orientation, and of course other functions
are possible. Nevertheless, the available data clearly support the idea
that at least one basic role of the MT surrounds involves scene
segmentation. Specifically, (1) MT classical receptive fields are
selective for direction, speed, and disparity; (2) MT surrounds are
selective for direction, speed, and disparity; (3) all three center and
surround selectivities are opposed, or antagonistic; and (4) the
effects of direction and disparity are generally independent (the
interactions between speed and direction/disparity effects have not
been tested). An obvious conclusion is therefore that center-surround
interactions in MT provide information about image differences between
the center and the surround.
The fourth point made above that direction and disparity effects are
independent is important. For simplicity, let us assume that direction
and disparity effects also combine linearly with speed. The
significance of this linearity is that single-unit firing rates carry
information about discontinuities without reflecting the specific cues
that define them. A change in a neuron's response could mean that
direction in the surround had changed (assuming a constant central
stimulus) or that disparity had changed or both. Whatever the case, the
change in response implies a difference between the center
and the surround. On the other hand, if direction, speed, and disparity
effects all depended on each other, the cell's firing rate would not
have a straightforward meaning regarding the degree of similarity
between the center and the surround. Therefore, the independence of the
effects of direction and disparity (and assumedly speed) allows us to
interpret activity as the likelihood that a difference exists between
the center and the surround. Again, a simple differencing mechanism of
this kind would be invaluable for segmenting an image.
In contrast to the studies of Allman et al. (1985b) , our surround
stimuli were composed of discrete patterns, rather than a uniform
stimulus across the surround. The discrete patterns have the
disadvantage that they cover a small part of the surround. Because MT
surrounds exhibit spatial summation (Allman et al., 1985b ), the
magnitude of effects observed in our study are probably low estimates
of the magnitudes one would see with larger, uniform surround
stimuli.
These studies do not distinguish between absolute and relative
disparity effects in the surround. That is, if the center pattern were
presented at other (nonpreferred) disparities, it is not clear whether
the disparity tuning in the surround would remain constant or vary with
the disparity of the center. The latter would imply that individual
cells encode relative depth between the center and surround. However,
even if surround tuning is constant in each cell, information about
relative depth could still be represented in the population by means of
neuronal subsets tuned for different center-surround disparity
combinations.
In summary, we have shown that center-surround interactions in the MT
receptive field are modulated by binocular disparity. Like the effects
of direction and speed (Allman et al., 1985a ), the effects of disparity
in the surround are antagonistic to the center; that is, cells are
suppressed when the center and the surround are stimulated with the
same disparity. A simple, unifying hypothesis concerning the effects of
direction, speed, and disparity is that surrounds are part of a
differencing mechanism that responds preferentially to image
discontinuities. Given the size of MT receptive fields, this
differencing mechanism is probably not involved in the precise mapping
of object boundaries, but rather in computations that require a coarse
parsing of the image into separately moving components.
 |
FOOTNOTES |
Received Nov. 19, 1997; revised June 30, 1998; accepted July 1, 1998.
This work was supported by grants from the National Eye Institute, the
Human Frontier Science Program, and the Sloan Foundation for
Theoretical Neurobiology.
We are grateful to G. Robertson, D. Ward, B. Gillikin, and S. Gertemanian for technical assistance, and to K. Shenoy for comments on
this manuscript.
Correspondence should be addressed to David C. Bradley at his present
address: Psychology Department, University of Chicago, 5848 S. University Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637.
 |
APPENDIX: STATISTICAL METHODS |
Linear Models
Most of the analyses done for this study were based on the general
linear model, or GLM. This technique uses a regression framework to
solve regression and ANOVA problems, as well as "mixed" problems
that combine quantitative and discrete variables (Fox, 1997 ). Below we
describe the different models used to analyze the data, followed by a
discussion of the methods used for hypothesis testing.
One-way ANOVA
A simple one-way ANOVA was used to test the effects of disparity
in the receptive field center. The GLM implementation of one-way ANOVA
is given by:
|
(1)
|
The complete model contains one such equation for each data point.
y is an individual response measurement,
x1 x8 are the independent variables, and 1 8 are the
parameters expressing the effect of each independent variable.
x1 x8 are "dummy"
variables, taking the value 0 or 1, and are used to incorporate nominal
scale (qualitative) data into the regression equation. µ is the
offset parameter, representing the overall mean.
Two-way ANOVA
To simultaneously analyze direction and disparity effects in the
surround, the GLM was configured as a two-way ANOVA, whose equation
is:
|
(2)
|
Here, y is the response measurement, and
x1 x9 are the
independent variables. The parameter represents the effect of direction, whereas represents the effects of disparity, and represents the direction-disparity interaction. The three-way ANOVA is
similar but has three main factors (as opposed to two) and three
first-order interactions (as opposed to one).
Comparison of disparity-tuning curves
To compare the shape of two different disparity tuning curves, we
expressed the responses under one condition as a function of the
responses under the other condition. For example, to compare center and
surround disparity tuning, we defined the independent variable as the response to a particular disparity in the center, and
defined the dependent variable as the response to the same disparity in the surround. These definitions made it possible to study
the center-surround relationship with regression techniques.
To compare disparity tuning curves under condition 1 versus condition
2, the model equation is simply:
|
(3)
|
where y is the response to a particular disparity under
condition 1 (e.g., in the surround), and x is the response
to the same disparity under condition 2 (e.g., in the surround). is the slope of the x-y relationship, and µ is the
intercept.
In one of our analyses, we studied the relationship between center and
surround tuning again, using linear regression but here we included a
dummy variable to represent the effect of direction. This allowed us to
determine whether the center-surround relationship was itself
dependent on the direction of motion in the surround. The model
equation was:
|
(4)
|
Here, y is the response to a given disparity in the
surround, and x1 is the quantitative independent
variable representing the response to the same disparity in the center.
x2 is a dummy variable indicating the direction
of motion in the surround (0 or 1).
This equation generates two linear curves, each representing the
center-surround relationship for one of the two surround directions.
represents the mean slope of these two curves, whereas , the
interaction parameter, is the difference in slope for the two different directions. is the difference between the intercepts of the two curves, and µ is the mean intercept.
Hypothesis tests
After we fit a given model (e.g., one- or two-way ANOVA) to the
data using standard linear regression techniques, the significance of
each factor (e.g., disparity) was evaluated with incremental F tests; that is, coefficients corresponding to a certain
factor were set to zero and the model refitted, and the increase in the residual sum of squares (the lack of fit) was tested for significance (F test). Interaction terms were fitted first; if they were
significant, no further tests were done. If interactions were not
significant, the "main effects" (e.g., direction and disparity)
were tested. This approach adheres to the marginality principle, which
states that hypothesis tests concerning main effects are invalid in the presence of interactions (Fox, 1997 ).
 |
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