Spatial mapping in the primate sensory projection: analytic structure and relevance to perception.

Abstract

The retinotopic mapping of the visual field to the surface of the striate cortex is characterized as a longarithmic conformal mapping. This summarizes in a concise way the observed curve of cortical magnification, the linear scaling of receptive field size with eccentricity, and the mapping of global visual field landmarks. It is shown that if this global structure is reiterated at the local level, then the sequence regularity of the simple cells of area 17 may be accounted for as well. Recently published data on the secondary visual area, the medial visual area, and the inferior pulvinar of the owl monkey suggests that same global logarithmic structure holds for these areas as well. The available data on the structure of the somatotopic mapping (areaS-1) supports a similar analysis. The possible relevance of the analytical form of the cortical receptotopic maps to perception is examined and a brief discussion of the developmental implications of these findings is presented.