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Journal of Neuroscience, Vol 14, 4109-4124, Copyright © 1994 by Society for Neuroscience
Neuronal and psychophysical sensitivity to motion signals in extrastriate area MST of the macaque monkey
S Celebrini and WT Newsome
Department of Neurobiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, California 94305.
We recorded the responses of single neurons in extrastriate area MST while
rhesus monkeys discriminated the direction of motion in a set of stochastic
visual displays. By varying systematically the strength of a coherent
motion signal within the visual display, we were able to measure
simultaneously the monkeys' psychophysical thresholds for direction
discrimination and the responses of single neurons to the same motion
signals. Neuronal thresholds for reliably signaling the direction of motion
in the visual display were calculated from the measured responses using a
method based in signal detection theory. Neurons in MST were exquisitely
sensitive to motion signals in the display, having thresholds for
discriminating the direction of coherent motion that were, on average,
equal to the psychophysical thresholds of the monkeys. For many MST
neurons, the intensity of the response was correlated with the monkey's
psychophysical judgements for repeated presentations of a given
near-threshold stimulus; the monkey tended to choose the preferred
direction of the neuron under study when that neuron responded more
strongly to the stimulus. In both of these respects, MST neurons were
indistinguishable from neurons in extrastriate area MT, a major source of
afferent input to MST. In a second set of experiments, we found that both
of these results held true in the face of pronounced manipulations of the
visual stimulus. Severe reductions in stimulus size and speed, for example,
compromised neuronal and psychophysical sensitivities by similar amounts so
that the average neuronal and psychophysical thresholds remained
approximately equal. In addition, the trial-to-trial covariation of
neuronal response and perceptual decision was unaffected by our stimulus
manipulations. Thus, MST neurons carry signals appropriate for supporting
psychophysical performance on our task over an impressively wide range of
stimulus configurations.
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