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Research Articles, Systems/Circuits

Differential Sampling of Visual Space in Ventral and Dorsal Early Visual Cortex

Edward H. Silson, Richard C. Reynolds, Dwight J. Kravitz and Chris I. Baker
Journal of Neuroscience 28 February 2018, 38 (9) 2294-2303; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2717-17.2018
Edward H. Silson
1Section on Learning and Plasticity, Laboratory of Brain and Cognition,
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Richard C. Reynolds
2Scientific and Statistical Computing Core, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, and
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Dwight J. Kravitz
3Department of Psychology, The George Washington University, Washington DC 20052
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Chris I. Baker
1Section on Learning and Plasticity, Laboratory of Brain and Cognition,
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This article has a correction. Please see:

  • Correction: Silson et al., “Differential Sampling of Visual Space in Ventral and Dorsal Early Visual Cortex” - October 24, 2018

Abstract

A fundamental feature of cortical visual processing is the separation of visual processing for the upper and lower visual fields. In early visual cortex (EVC), the upper visual field is processed ventrally, with the lower visual field processed dorsally. This distinction persists into several category-selective regions of occipitotemporal cortex, with ventral and lateral scene-, face-, and object-selective regions biased for the upper and lower visual fields, respectively. Here, using an elliptical population receptive field (pRF) model, we systematically tested the sampling of visual space within ventral and dorsal divisions of human EVC in both male and female participants. We found that (1) pRFs tend to be elliptical and oriented toward the fovea with distinct angular distributions for ventral and dorsal divisions of EVC, potentially reflecting a radial bias; and (2) pRFs in ventral areas were larger (∼1.5×) and more elliptical (∼1.2×) than those in dorsal areas. These differences potentially reflect a tendency for receptive fields in ventral temporal cortex to overlap the fovea with less emphasis on precise localization and isotropic representation of space compared with dorsal areas. Collectively, these findings suggest that ventral and dorsal divisions of EVC sample visual space differently, likely contributing to and/or stemming from the functional differentiation of visual processing observed in higher-level regions of the ventral and dorsal cortical visual pathways.

SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The processing of visual information from the upper and lower visual fields is separated in visual cortex. Although ventral and dorsal divisions of early visual cortex (EVC) are commonly assumed to sample visual space equivalently, we demonstrate systematic differences using an elliptical population receptive field (pRF) model. Specifically, we demonstrate that (1) ventral and dorsal divisions of EVC exhibit diverging distributions of pRF angle, which are biased toward the fovea; and (2) ventral pRFs exhibit higher aspect ratios and cover larger areas than dorsal pRFs. These results suggest that ventral and dorsal divisions of EVC sample visual space differently and that such differential sampling likely contributes to different functional roles attributed to the ventral and dorsal pathways, such as object recognition and visually guided attention, respectively.

  • population receptive field modeling
  • retinotopy
  • visual cortex
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The Journal of Neuroscience: 38 (9)
Journal of Neuroscience
Vol. 38, Issue 9
28 Feb 2018
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Differential Sampling of Visual Space in Ventral and Dorsal Early Visual Cortex
Edward H. Silson, Richard C. Reynolds, Dwight J. Kravitz, Chris I. Baker
Journal of Neuroscience 28 February 2018, 38 (9) 2294-2303; DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2717-17.2018

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Differential Sampling of Visual Space in Ventral and Dorsal Early Visual Cortex
Edward H. Silson, Richard C. Reynolds, Dwight J. Kravitz, Chris I. Baker
Journal of Neuroscience 28 February 2018, 38 (9) 2294-2303; DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2717-17.2018
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Keywords

  • population receptive field modeling
  • retinotopy
  • visual cortex

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