title: Pop-out in visual search of moving targets in the archer fish.
abstract: Pop-out in visual search reflects the capacity of observers to rapidly detect visual targets independent of the number of distracting objects in the background. Although it may be beneficial to most animals, pop-out behaviour has been observed only in mammals, where neural correlates are found in primary visual cortex as contextually modulated neurons that encode aspects of saliency. Here we show that archer fish can also utilize this important search mechanism by exhibiting pop-out of moving targets. We explore neural correlates of this behaviour and report the presence of contextually modulated neurons in the optic tectum that may constitute the neural substrate for a saliency map. Furthermore, we find that both behaving fish and neural responses exhibit additive responses to multiple visual features. These findings suggest that similar neural computations underlie pop-out behaviour in mammals and fish, and that pop-out may be a universal search mechanism across all vertebrates.
authors.affiliation: 1] Department of Life Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva 84105, Israel [2] Zlotowski Center for Neuroscience, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva 84105, Israel.
authors.forename: Mor
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ben-Tov
authors.affiliation: 1] Zlotowski Center for Neuroscience, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva 84105, Israel [2] Department of Biomedical Engineering, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva 84105, Israel [3] Department of Neuroscience, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam 3015 GE, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Opher
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Donchin
authors.affiliation: 1] Zlotowski Center for Neuroscience, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva 84105, Israel [2] Department of Computer Science, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva 84105, Israel.
authors.forename: Ohad
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Ben-Shahar
authors.affiliation: 1] Department of Life Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva 84105, Israel [2] Zlotowski Center for Neuroscience, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva 84105, Israel.
authors.forename: Ronen
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Segev
mesh_terms: D000200:Action Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D000818:Animals; D004567:Electrodes, Implanted; D005399:Fishes / Q000502:physiology*; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D013477:Superior Colliculi / Q000502:physiology*; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D014794:Visual Fields / Q000502:physiology; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*