Neural activity in early visual cortex reflects behavioral experience and higher-order perceptual saliency.
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.
Lee
Tai Sing
TS
Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition 4400 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213, USA. tai@cnbc.cmu.edu
Yang
Cindy F
CF
Romero
Richard D
RD
Mumford
David
D
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*