Seeing patterns in human visual cortex

Abstract

Cells in the visual system look out on the world through the relatively small windows of their receptive fields. This creates a perceptual dilemma known as the ‘aperture problem’, in which the locally ambiguous views of individual cells must be resolved into higher-order percepts that are consistent with the whole. When cells in V1 see a moving plaid (grid), for example, they respond to the direction and orientation of the component lines. They are referred to as ‘component-motion’ cells. Cells higher up in the visual hierarchy must integrate this component information and respond to the direction of movement of the pattern. Such ‘pattern-motion’ cells (as they are called) are found in visual area MT of macaque monkeys. Using fMRI, Huk and Heeger have been able to infer the existence of subpopulations of these pattern-motion cells in area MT+ of humans [ 1. Huk A.C Heeger D.J Pattern-motion responses in human visual cortex. Nat. Neurosci. 2002; 5: 72-75 Crossref PubMed Scopus (150) Google Scholar ].