title: Neural activity in early visual cortex reflects behavioral experience and higher-order perceptual saliency.
abstract: We report here that shape-from-shading stimuli evoked a long-latency contextual pop-out response in V1 and V2 neurons of macaque monkeys, particularly after the monkeys had used the stimuli in a behavioral task. The magnitudes of the pop-out responses were correlated to the monkeys' behavioral performance, suggesting that these signals are neural correlates of perceptual pop-out saliency. The signals changed with the animal's behavioral adaptation to stimulus contingencies, indicating that perceptual saliency is also a function of experience and behavioral relevance. The evidence that higher-order stimulus attributes and task experience can influence early visual processing supports the notion that perceptual computation is an interactive and plastic process involving multiple cortical areas.
authors.affiliation: Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition 4400 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213, USA. tai@cnbc.cmu.edu
authors.forename: Tai Sing
authors.initials: TS
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Cindy F
authors.initials: CF
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Richard D
authors.initials: RD
authors.lastname: Romero
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Mumford
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000818:Animals; D016477:Artifacts; D001288:Attention; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology*; D005133:Eye Movements / Q000502:physiology; D000882:Haplorhini; D009473:Neuronal Plasticity / Q000502:physiology; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*