Reaction Times to Predictable Visual Patterns Reflect Neural Responses in Early Visual Cortex

Abstract

It has long been speculated that the visual system should use a coding strategy that takes advantage of statistical redundancies in images. But how such a coding strategy should manifest in neural responses has been less clear. Low-level image structure related to the power spectrum of natural images appears to be captured by a hard-wired efficient code in the retina of the fly and precortical structures like the LGN of cats that maximizes information content through the limited capacity channel of the optic nerve. But visual images are typically filled with higher-order structure beyond that captured by the power spectrum and visual cortex is not constrained by the same capacity limits as the optic nerve. Whether and how visual cortex can flexibly code for higher order redundancies is unknown. Here we show using psychophysical techniques that the neural response in early human visual cortex may be modulated by orientation redundancies in images such that a visual feature that is contained within a predictive pattern results in slower reaction times than a feature that deviates from a pattern, suggesting lower neural responses to predictable stimuli in the visual cortex. Our results point to a neural response in early visual cortex that is sensitive to global patterns and redundancies in visual images and is in marked contrast to standard models of cortical visual processing.