The speed of sight.
Macaque monkeys were presented with continuous rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) sequences of unrelated naturalistic images at rates of 14--222 msec/image, while neurons that responded selectively to complex patterns (e.g., faces) were recorded in temporal cortex. Stimulus selectivity was preserved for 65% of these neurons even at surprisingly fast presentation rates (14 msec/image or 72 images/sec). Five human subjects were asked to detect or remember images under equivalent conditions. Their performance in both tasks was above chance at all rates (14--111 msec/image). The performance of single neurons was comparable to that of humans and responded in a similar way to changes in presentation rate. The implications for the role of temporal cortex cells in perception are discussed.
Instituto de Fisiologia Umana, Università di Parma, Italy. keysers@nemo.unipr.ir
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Keysers
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Xiao
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Földiák
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Perrett
D000818:Animals; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D001931:Brain Mapping; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology; D005403:Fixation, Ocular; D006801:Humans; D008253:Macaca mulatta; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D008959:Models, Neurological; D008960:Models, Psychological; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D011601:Psychophysics; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D014785:Vision, Ocular / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*