Integrating Retinotopic Features in Spatiotopic Coordinates

William J. Harrison; Peter J. Bex

doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5252-13.2014

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Integrating Retinotopic Features in Spatiotopic Coordinates

Journal article

Peer reviewed

Integrating Retinotopic Features in Spatiotopic Coordinates

William J. Harrison and Peter J. Bex

The Journal of Neuroscience, Vol.34(21), pp.7351-7360

2014

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5252-13.2014

PMCID: PMC4028505

PMID: 24849367

Abstract

crowding

feature integration

remapping

spatiotopy

trans-saccade

visual stability

The receptive fields of early visual neurons are anchored in retinotopic coordinates (Hubel and Wiesel, 1962). Eye movements shift these receptive fields and therefore require that different populations of neurons encode an object's constituent features across saccades. Whether feature groupings are preserved across successive fixations or processing starts anew with each fixation has been hotly debated (Melcher and Morrone, 2003; Melcher, 2005, 2010; Knapen et al., 2009; Cavanagh et al., 2010a,b; Morris et al., 2010). Here we show that feature integration initially occurs within retinotopic coordinates, but is then conserved within a spatiotopic coordinate frame independent of where the features fall on the retinas. With human observers, we first found that the relative timing of visual features plays a critical role in determining the spatial area over which features are grouped. We exploited this temporal dependence of feature integration to show that features co-occurring within 45 ms remain grouped across eye movements. Our results thus challenge purely feedforward models of feature integration (Pelli, 2008; Freeman and Simoncelli, 2011) that begin de novo after every eye movement, and implicate the involvement of brain areas beyond early visual cortex. The strong temporal dependence we quantify and its link with trans-saccadic object perception instead suggest that feature integration depends, at least in part, on feedback from higher brain areas (Mumford, 1992; Rao and Ballard, 1999; Di Lollo et al., 2000; Moore and Armstrong, 2003; Stanford et al., 2010).

Details

Title: Integrating Retinotopic Features in Spatiotopic Coordinates
Authors: William J. Harrison (Corresponding Author) - Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary
Peter J. Bex (Author) - Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary
Publication details: The Journal of Neuroscience, Vol.34(21), pp.7351-7360
Publisher: Society for Neuroscience
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5252-13.2014
ISSN: 1529-2401
PMID: 24849367; PMC4028505
Grant note: This work was supported by National Institutes of Health Grants R01 EY19281 and R01 EY018664.
Organisation Unit: School of Health - Psychology
Language: English
Record Identifier: 99995994502621
Output Type: Journal article