| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © 2009. National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Terms of Use and Privacy Statement |
Below are the first 10 and last 10 pages of uncorrected machine-read text (when available) of this chapter, followed by the top 30 algorithmically extracted key phrases from the chapter as a whole.
Intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text on the opening pages of each chapter.
Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
Do not use for reproduction, copying, pasting, or reading; exclusively for search engines.
OCR for page 5
Information Processing in the Primate
Visual System
DAVID C. VAN ESSEN
It is useful at the outset to recall how impressive our visual system is
in analyzing and integrating information. A simple example can be found
in Figure IN This is a black and white image that starts out as millions of
bits of information about gray-level intensities that are encoded within the
retina. What happens, literally in a split second, is that the brain processes
that information and yields a rich and vind set of perceptions. In particular,
we perceive a human face. Moreover, by automatically comparing this face
with the enormous number of images viewed over a lifetime, we recognize
it as a unique individual- Albert Einstein.
What is equally impressive is that a vastly degraded and simplified
image (Figure IB) is also immediately recognized as Einstein. This is some-
thing that no computer vision system as yet can come even remotely close
to achieving not because computers inherently lack the computational
power to process the image, but because they have not been programmed
with the right strategies for processing this information. The issue for this
symposium, then, is the specific strategies used by the visual system to
carry out such elegant analyses of the immense variety of images that we
confront during normal vision. My remarks concentrate on the macaque
monkey. Monkeys have been chosen because their sense of vision is very
similar to that of the human in a variety of important and basic ways.
RETINAL PROCESSING
Images formed on the retina are picked up by approximately 100
million photoreceptors in both macaque monkeys and humans. About 95
percent of those are rods, which are used for night vision. In daytime
vision, about 5 million cones feed information onto approximately 1 million
5
OCR for page 6
6
DAVID C. VAN ESSEN
FIGURE 1A A photograph of a unique individual—Albert Einstein.
OCR for page 7
INFORMATION PROCESSING IN THE PRIMATE VISUAL SYSTEM
7
retinal ganglion cells. Thus, there is already a great deal of convergence
within the retina. That convergence is handled very elegantly by putting a
high density of cones and retinal ganglion cells to subserve the fovea. In
the center of the fovea there are 10,000 or more ganglion cells subserving
each square degree of the visual field. Out in the periphery of the retina,
however, the image is analyzed at a much coarser level—on the order of
just a handful of ganglion cells per square degree.
Another important point about the output from the retina is that
retinal ganglion cells can be subdivided into major cell classes. In primates,
the subdivision is a basic dichotomy between approximately 10 percent of
the cells that are very large neurons with large dendritic trees, termed the
magnocellular population. These are distinct from the majority (90 percent)
of the ganglion cells, which are of the smaller and termed the parvocellular
subtype.
It is the parvocellular neurons that send high-acuity information, in-
cluding information about color. Parvocellular neurons are generally asso-
ciated with sustained responses to illumination. The magnocellular system,
by contrast, carries little chromatic information and responds transiently to
illumination.
These two pathways head out from the retina and relay through
separate layers of the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN). The magnocellular
neurons of the retina terminate in the ventral-most pair of layers, while the
majority of paIvocellular neurons terminate in the uppermost layers. This
dichotomy is continued in the relay up to primary visual cortex—the striate
cortex.
VISUAL CORTEX
It has been known for more than a century that the primary visual area,
also known as striate cortex, V1, and area 17, is easily distinguishable from
neighboring areas by its characteristic structure. It receives the direct inputs
from the LGN, and it contains a very precise and orderly representation of
the opposite half of the visual field. In addition, there is a much larger belt
of tissue, the extrastriate visual cortex, much of which is buried in one or
another of the assorted folds of the cortex. At one time, it was thought that
the visual cortex occupied only the occipital lobe. From studies done in a
number of laboratories, however, it is now clear that visual cortex extends
well down into the temporal lobe (the inferior temporal region) and well
up into the posterior parietal region. So, altogether, more than half of the
macaque's cerebral cortex is largely or exclusively visual in function.
How is this belt of tissue organized? Classical anatomists historically
emphasized that there was just a small number of subdivisions associated
OCR for page 8
8
'a
/~
- ~
~~ ~~!
i/
DAVID C. VAN ESSEN
, if ,
~i' fit -
1
-
l t\ (~
~ ~ is!
_,<
\
~`
\
4'~
! 'an'
.
\
\
FIGURE 1B A line drawing that is much reduced in overall information content but is
still easily recognizable as Einstein. Drawing by R.A. Eatock.
\
OCR for page 9
INFORMATION PROCESSING IN THE PRIMATE VISUAL SYSTEM
P,P
7~J ~
r
_ / 1
As I ~
IT
Y \
LIT ~ /
9
a/
FIGURE 2 Visual areas in the cerebral cortex of the macaque monkey. The location
of different areas are indicated on a drawing of the right hemisphere (upper left) and
on an unfolded Dimensional cortical map (center). Areas that have been particularly
well-studied are shown in stippled: area V1, V2, V4, the middle temporal area (Ml), the
inferotemporal complex (IT), and the posterior panetal complex (PP). Source: Van Essen
and Anderson (1990)
with visual processing in the cortex. It is now clear this was a vast over-
simplification. There are not merely a few, but rather a large number of
distinct visual areas that have been identified in various laboratories over
the past two decades (Van Essen, 1985~.
In a two-dimensional unfolded map of the cerebral cortex in the
right hemisphere of a macaque monkey, one can see more than two
dozen different visual areas occupying the entire posterior (left) half of the
hemisphere. For simplicity, only a few of these areas (the stippled ones)
have been labeled in Figure 2. Many of these are well-defined areas that
nearly all laboratories agree on, although not everyone uses exactly the same
terminology. Although substantial number of regions are less well-defined,
there is reasonable evidence that they represent distinct subdivisions.
OCR for page 10
10
DAVID C VAN ESSEN
Delineating different areas of the cortex has turned out to be a major
undertaking. It is difficult because the criteria for identifying these different
subdivisions vary considerably. In general, visual areas in the cerebral cortex
have been identified by a combination of criteria, the most important of
which is that each area has a distinct pattern of inputs from other cortical
areas and outputs to other target areas.
Most of these areas have maps of the contralateral half of the visual
field, which is accordingly represented over and over again. The maps
are themselves an important part of the identification process. There is a
lot of individual variability, however, in the detailed organization of these
areas from one animal to the next. Although this is of interest in its own
right, it also contributes to the difficulty of working out the arrangement of
different areas.
HIERARCHICAL PROCESSING
Anatomical connections can also be used, to assess the way in which
information flows from one place to another in a cortex. Studies in a
number of laboratories have shown that connections within the visual cortex
are nearly always reciprocal in nature. If area A projects to area B. then
there is a reciprocal connection from B back to ~ In the great majority
of such cases, these connections are asymmetrical. Several research groups
have noted this asymmetry and have suggested that direction could be
associated with forward or ascending information flow, whereas flow In the
opposite direction is viewed as feedback.
Based on these anatomical criteria, John Maunsell and I (Van Essen
and Maunsell, 1983) suggested several years ago that the overall collection
of visual areas could be grouped together into an anatomically based
hierarchical scheme that starts with area V1 and then goes through a half
dozen separate layers until one gets to higher-level processing centers in
the temporal, frontal, and parietal lobes. An important question is how
high into cortical processing centers this scheme remains valid.
There is now enough evidence to trace the succession of processing
centers all the way from the retina up through visual areas in the occipital,
temporal, and parietal lobes, all the way up and out of visual cortex
proper in fact, out of neocortex and into the hippocampus. In our current
version Dan Felleman and I have proposed a dozen stages of hierarchical
processing in the cortex, plus an additional pair of stages represented by
the retina and LGN. This, then, gives us a sense of the degree to which
information goes through successive hierarchical levels, and also of the rich
degree of parallelism and reciprocity in terms of multiple outputs from any
one area to targets at both higher and lower levels. Thus, we can think of
the visual system as being divided into a large number of discrete, higher,
OCR for page 11
INFORMATION PROCESSING IN THE PRIMATE VISUAL SYSTEM
11
interconnected modules: individual cortical areas containing anywhere from
just a few million cells in small areas like MT to hundreds of millions of
cells in areas like V1.
PROCESSING STREAMS
Another aspect of modularity comes from looking in more detail at
the way in which some visual areas, in particular areas V1 and V2, can
be broken up into discrete compartments. (V1 is the largest of all visual
areas; V2 is nearly as large and adjoins V1.)
The cortex, when sliced parallel to the cortical surface and stained
with the mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome oxidase, reveals a distinctive
pattern. This pattern was first discovered for V1 by Margaret Wong-Riley
(Carroll and Wong-Riley, 1984) and for V2 by Roger Motels and colleagues
(Tootell et al., 1983~. Within V1, there is a remarkable arrangement of
little patches or so-called blobs, particularly in the superficial layers of the
cortex, that stain densely for cytochrome oxidase (Livingstone and Hubel,
1984~. These patches are separated by so-called interblobs which stain less
densely for the same enzyme. At the border between V1 and V2, a rather
different configuration is evident orthogonal to the boundary between the
areas. The darkly stained regions have a different connectional pattern
than the more lightly stained region, and both of these differ from a third
compartment of pale interstripes, all within area V2. Not only are there
distinct patterns of connections between V1 and V2 associated with this
compartmental organization, but there are also distinctive connectional
patterns between the compartments in V2 and higher-order targets in
particular, areas MT and V4 (Figure 3~. Evidence for these connections
comes from experiments done in England (Shipp and Zeki, 1985) and in
my laboratory (DeYoe and Van Essen, 1985, 1988~. Experiments we have
conducted show that when fluorescent tracers were injected into the target
areas MT and V4, we were able to identify cells projecting to MT located
primarily in the thick stripes, with a much lower number and some cells
in the thin stripes as well. We also identified cells projecting off to area V4
that are concentrated in both the thin stripe and the interstripe regions.
There appears to be a dichotomy in the retinal and geniculate or-
ganization. The magnocellular and parvocellular subdivisions project to
separate portions of area V1. The magnocellular projects to its own layer,
area layer 4C, which in turn projects to layer 4B. That is one discrete com-
partment. Then the pa~vocellular system, perhaps including an additional
subset of so-called interlaminer cells in the LGN, projects indirectly to the
blobs and the interblobs associated with the superficial layers. This tripartite
OCR for page 12
12
V2
V 1 I Blob
UGN r:
RGC ~ ~
DAVID G HAN ESSEN
Temporal i-- I T ---LI I
|-- P P ~ Parietal
, ~ ~ , 1
. ~ ~
I T I
V4 ~ AT
r . .
Thin Inter- Thick
stripe stripe stripe
Lam = _ ~
l bloc: T
M I
G
Occipital
Cortex
FIGURE 3 Processing streams and hierarchical organization of the primate visual system.
At the two lowest levels, retinal ganglion cells (RGC) and lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN),
there is a dichotomy between the small pa~vocellular (P) cells and the large magnocellular
(M) cells. In areas V1 and V2 there is a tripartite compartmentalization. Layer 4B of
V1 and the thick stripes of V2 are dominated By magnocellular inputs, and they project
most strongly to area MT and from there to the posterior parietal complex. The blobs and
interblobs of V1 and the thin stripes and interstripes of V2 are dominated by pawocellular
inputs, and information flows from them to area V4 and then to the inferotemporal
complex. All lines except that from the retina to the LGN represent reciprocal connections.
Note that there is significant cross-talk between processing streams at several levels of the
hierarchy. Source: Van Essen and Anderson (1990~.
arrangement is preserved by the projections to the tripartite scheme in area
V2: interblobs to interstripes, blobs to thin stripes, and layer 4B to thick
stripes. There is further segregation of these streams with the thick stripes
as well as layer 4B projecting both to area MT and V4 receiving inputs not
just from one stream but from both of these together.
OCR for page 13
INFORMATION PROCESSING IN THE PRIMATE V75UAL SYSTEM
NEURONAL RESPONSE PROPERTIES
13
What are the cells in these different compartments actually doing
terms of processing information? The standard approach inspired by the
work of Hubel and Wiesel is to use simple stimuli such as bars and edges
of light, and to ask what turns on a cell in any given area. Figure 4 shows an
example of a cell from area VP, which happened to be highly selective for
stimulus wavelength. The cell responds to long wavelengths, i.e., red, not at
all to short wavelengths, and not at all to white. There is now quite a rich
catalog of information of the basic selectivity of cells in the visual pathway,
based on studies in many laboratories. We know, for example, that color
selectivity is very common in V4, but is very rare in MT. Interestingly, the
same distinction applies to the different compartments of area V2. Those
compartments projecting off to MT have very low color selectivity, whereas
both of the thin and interstripe compartments that project off to V4 are
rich in color selectivity by our criteria.
The opposite is evident when looking at direction selectivity. Here
there is a high incidence of direction selectivity in area MT and very low
in area V4. A similar bias occurs in that there is a very low incidence
of direction selectivity in the V2 compartments projecting to V4 and a
somewhat higher incidence in the thick stripes that project off to MT. But
it is not a perfect match, in that the percentage of direction selective cells
in the thick stripes of V2 is not nearly as high as the actual percentage for
MT. One has to wonder what is going on in this compartment other than a
simple analysis of stimulus direction.
Using this kind of information, again gleaned from a number of
different studies, Ted DeYoe put together an illustration to give a qualitative
impression of the kinds of information processing represented within the
different channels that we have seen. This is illustrated in Figure 5 with a
set of icons representing different types of selectivity (prism = wavelength
selectivity; spectacles = binocular disparity selectivity; pointing hand =
direction selectivity; and angle = orientation selectivity); these are placed
in areas and compartments in which a high incidence at such selectivity is
encountered. In the magnocellular stream, for example, projecting through
V1 and V2 into MT, there is a substantial incidence of direction selectivity,
suggesting an involvement with motion analysis. There is also information
about stimulus orientation and binocular disparity represented at all these
levels. So it is not just a single kind of selectivity. Multiple cues appear to
be analyzed within this stream.
Within the parvocellular stream, the compartments associated with the
blobs and the thin stripes are dominated by an analysis of wavelength;
one suspects that it is involved in the analysis of stimulus color. The
compartments the one associated with the interblobs contain a combination
OCR for page 14
14
DAVID C. VAN ESSEN
Response
(impuIses/sec)
30 -
20
10
S pontaneous
activity
;
blue green yellow orange red white
,....1,- ..,, 1. ,n,..1.~..4 .
BLUE
I. . .1 1. -..1 .1
Aid .. -..IL, t-",
RED
1.~t ... L. t.1a ~ ....1, 1.111.
ORANGE
I ..~11._1l_ 1.,.. ....` ...,~.L
W H I T E
1 200
I impulses/ sec
sec
FIGURE 4 Selectivity of a cell in area VP to stimuli of different wavelengths. The cell
responds well to long wavelengths (red) but not to shorter wavelengths or to white light.
Source: ~ Burkhalter and D. Van Essen, unpublished.
Of color-selective cells and orientation selective cells, many cells showing
selectivity along both dimensions.
This raises a question of whether there is a real difference in the way
in which color (wavelength) information is used in these two streams. We
really do not know the answer, but it seems likely that color information
OCR for page 15
INFORMATION PROCESSING IN THE PLATE SUM SYSTEM
Infero tempera
Areas
U4 At
UU!
Th i n . SItnr~'epre
'1 .' 11
_ -
Blob
LON
In for
Blob
~ | Parvo
15
Par fetal
Areas
1 11
~ r I
:---------T
(I MT ~
l
Am.
U3
Th icE
11
ALL
4B
in o
FIGURE 5 Representation of various response selectivities in different areas and compart-
ments in the visual hierarchy. Icons are placed in each compartment to symbolize a high
incidence of cells showing selectivity for stimulus wavelength (prisms), orientation (angle
symbols), direction (pointing hands), or binocular disparity (spectacles). Each processing
stream has a distinctive physiological profile, but most types of selectivity are representative
in more than one stream. Source: Adapted from DeYoe and Van Essen (1988~.
OCR for page 16
16
DAVID C. VAN ESSEN
might sometimes be used lo encode the presence of interesting features,
such as chromatic borders. Once the information about the presence of
a border has been generated, however, information about the colors used
to define the border might be discarded higher in the system. Thus, the
presence of wavelength selectivity per se does not in and of itself imply that
it is part of the stream explicitly involved in color analysis. We need to be
aware of those subtleties in order to fathom the relationship between the
properties of individual neurons and the functions of the circuits in which
they are involved (see DeYoe and Van Essen, 1988~.
As one traces the visual pathway through fairly high levels, it is striking
that not only can one activate these higher-level cells with rather simple
stimuli bars and edges—but also the sharpness of tuning that one sees is
not dramatically different at these high levels than it is in V-1 (the first
level at which such information becomes explicit at the single neuron level).
That raises a fundamental question about what these higher-order areas are
actually doing. Neurons in these areas are not simply relaying information;
they must also be processing the information in an interesting way. We
suspect that the answer does not lie in the way in which simple stimuli are
analyzed. More complicated stimuli are needed to understand the role of
these cells. The type of stimulus complexity that is needed should be linked
to the tasks of the visual system in mediating perception. We should use
psychophysics, then, as a guide for studying higher-level processing.
A good example is an experiment inspired by the perception of texture.
It is notable that we are able to get the percept very quickly that we are
looking at a photo of a rocky beach (Figure 6~. We don't need to scrutinize
individual rocks, one after another and sort of assemble them sequentially
into the percept of a beach. It is the texture of that pattern that we process
very quickly to get the impression not only that this is a particular rocky
beach, but that its surface is receding in depth.
How do we begin to analyze the visual processing of texture? Psy-
chophysical experiments (e.g., Julesz, 1984; Beck, 1976) have made consid-
erable progress on this issue in significant part by reducing the problem to
one in which textures are defined using a set of distinct texture elements, or
sextons. Using their work as a general guide, we have made recordings from
areas V-1 and V-2 using texture patterns of a rather simple type. Using
computer-generated texture patterns we have done the following kind of
experiment (Figure 7~. By recording from a cell in area V-2, we found that
the cell preferred near-vertical stimuli when tested with a single texture
element. When this element was surrounded by a texture pattern of the
same element orientation (a uniform texture field), the response of the cell
was almost completely suppressed. When the surround elements were of
the orthogonal orientation (orientation contrast), the responses were still
OCR for page 17
INFORMATION PROCESSING IN THE PRIMATE VISUAL SYSTEM
FIGURE 6 A natural scene that is rich in textural information.
OCR for page 18
18
`,, 40
Y 30
0
-
a)
~ O
20
10
Response
Histograms
........ ` L l~., ~ ~ ~
_
~1
DAVID C VAN ESSEN
+
/ \
/ \ \
A. I I .. L I 1,
_ d' "4
' - a`'/.` ~
C C=S CIS S C C=S C'S S"
Stimulus Configurations
FIGURE 7 Responses of a neuron in are a V1 to orientation contrast. The cell responds
well to a near-vertical bar presented within the classical receptive field (C) and to the same
bar when it is surrounded by a texture pattern containing bars of orthogonal orientation (C
= S). Responses are suppressed when the bar is part of a uniform texture field (C = S).
Source: Van Essen et al. (1989~.
quite vigorous. Thus, the responses of this particular cell correlate well
with the perceptual salience of the central texture element.
COMPUTATIONAL APPROACHES
I would like now to address the role of computational approaches to
vision in understanding basic aspects of visual processing. It is popular these
days to consider the possibility that computational approaches will provide
strong insights for understanding visual processing, but the field is still in
its infancy, especially in terms of making a correlation between abstract
computational theories and actual physiological processes occurring within
the brain. Although computational models are very interesting in their own
OCR for page 19
INFORMATION PROCESSING IN THE PLATE SUM SYSTEM
19
right, it is hard to see exactly what their implications are at the-level of
single neurons in visual cortex.
One example of a computational strategy that we suspect may have firm
roots in the underlying anatomy and physiology involves the understanding
of depth perception by stereopsis, an idea generated by Charles Anderson,
now working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.
The standard concept of stereopsis begins with the eyes fixating on a
given point. That point is imaged on the center of the fovea in the right and
left eyes. Images lying on the horopter, or fixation plane, fall on precisely
corresponding portions of the two retinas. Images in depth relative to the
horopter, however, fall on disparate or noncorresponding portions of the
two retinas.
Our sense of stereoacuity is exquisitely good. We can pick up disparities
on the order of a few seconds of arc a fraction of a photoreceptor
diameter. Although that is certainly impressive by any standard, it is even
more striking when one takes into account the fact that our ability to fixate
an object and hold it on the center of the two foveae is really not all that
great. Psychophysical observations have demonstrated that there is actually
a fair amount of jitter in the precise localization of the image and that the
jitter is not concordant in the two eyes. From moment to moment, there
are fluctuations on the order of at least a few minutes of arc, and up to 10
or 20 minutes of arc during a time when we can see a well-defined spot that
appears to be stable in depth. The implication is that our stereoacuity is a
couple of orders of magnitude sharper than the binocular vergence errors
that are part of our normal visual processing.
How do we do this? This is a serious computational problem for the
visual system to cope with, yet we obviously succeed. We suggest that one
needs some kind of dynamic shifting or remapping process between the
retina and the first stage of binocular integration in the cortex (Anderson
and Van Essen, 1987~. This is termed the reg~straiion problem in stereopsis.
Imagine the left and right eyes are looking at very similar patterns
except that they are physically offset. This peak falls on disparate parts
of the two retinas because of the vergence errors (Figure 8~. What we
need is a process in which the projection from the retinal ganglion cells
up to the cortex can be adjusted independently for the right and left eyes,
and adjusted by sufficient magnitude that there would be alignment of the
image representations. If that could be achieved in the manner illustrated
schematically in the figure, then the registration problem could be cleverly
solved by the visual system.
Figure 9A shows a type of circuit that could do this job. In this
succession of relay stages from the retinal ganglion cells up through several
successive layers, connections ascend, but they branch a little bit at the first
level, a little more at the second, even more at the highest level. As they
OCR for page 20
20
BINOCULAR
REGISTRATION
INDEX
l
r SHIFT ~
DAVID C VAN ESSEN
BINOCULAR
I NTEGRDT I ON
REGISTRATION O O O O O O O O O O O ~ O O O O O On R
STAGE ~ O O O O O O O O O O O e 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ~ L
/
/ ~ ~
/
I CONTROL | ~ \ ~ \
ROC
LUMINANCE _/~-^-~-`
PATTERNS LEFT EYE
RIGHT EYE
FIGURE 8 Schematic diagram of how a dynamic shifting process could provide a binocular
registration at the cortical level (V1) despite misregistration of luminance patterns for the
two eyes. Note that the sharp luminance peak, which activates noncorresponding RGCs
(hatched circles) maps onto corresponding cells at the registration stage. Source: Anderson
and Van Essen (1987).
branch, one would like only one set of branches active at any one moment.
So if, for example, the right side of the pathway were active, information
would go up and get shifted to the right, and then get shifted to the left,
register, and shift back to the right. If one had control over which branches
were being affected, one could get a dynamic remapping of the cells at the
beginning onto any set of contiguous cells up at highest level.
We propose, in the slightly simpler set of layers and cells shown in
Figure 9B, that one could achieve this by means of a set of inhibitory
neurons that could actually shunt or veto the signals going through one set
of dendrites. The other inhibitory neuron would be silent, thereby letting
the pathway going to the other set of dendrites send its signal through. The
activity of these inhibitory neurons could determine whether information
goes to the right or the left at each successive level.
Is there any shred of evidence that something like that might be go-
ing on in the visual system? To know, one would need several successive
seemingly simple relay stages, inhibitory neurons, and some kind of feed-
back mechanism. All those features are in fact present in area V1, but
their significance has heretofore been puzzling. The inputs from the lateral
geniculate nucleus have been known for a long time to terminate within the
layer four complex, in which there is an enormous increase in the number
of cells available. Yet these cells have been described as simple relay stages
without having orientation selectivity or any other kind or processing. So
OCR for page 21
INFORMATION PROCESSING IN THE PRIMATE VISUAL SYSTEM
21
0~ ~
B
SHIFT
CONTROL
Ail_
1
FIGURE 9 A simple shifter circuit. A: Ascending components for a four-level circuit with
eight cells at the bottom. Cells at each level have bifurcating axons that contact a pair of
target cells at the next level. B: A complete shifter circuit for a three-level network, starting
with four cells at the bottom level. Specific dendntic innervation patterns are shown for
both ascending inputs and inhibitory neurons involved in the control of the shifting process.
Heavy lines in A and B represent an activity pattern involving successive shifts to the right,
left, and (in A) again to the right. Source: Anderson and Van Essen (1987~.
there are successive relay stages available, inhibitory neurons in these lay-
ers, and also massive feedback known to come from layer six to all of these
intermediate layers.
There is also physiological evidence (Poggio, 1984) that the disparity
tuning of cells in the superficial layers of the cortex is actually sharper than
the vergence errors known to exist in the monkey as well as in humans.
OCR for page 22
22
DAVID C VAN ESSEN
Thus, there is physiological evidence that the registration problem has been
solved very early in the visual cortex. Our specific hypothesis, then, is that
it may be solved by means of a dynamic shifting process of predictable
magnitude that would exist in these earlier and heretofore mysterious set
of relay layers within primary visual cortex. This is something we are
exploring at the present time.
Altogether, we have learned a fair amount about what is going on in
the monkey brain. The extent to which this is relevant to the human brain,
with its tenfold or more greater size, is an issue that I will leave to other
investigators. I think, though, it is fair to conclude that we are continuing
to make progress in understanding how the detailed microcircuitry of the
cortex can explain interesting aspects of visual processing.
REFERENCES
Anderson, C.H., and D.C. Van Essen
1987 Shifter circuits: A computational strategy for dynamic aspects of visual
processing. Proc. Nate Acad. Sci. 84:6297~301.
Beck, JJ.
1976 Effect of orientation and of shape similarity on perceptual grouping. Per-
cepiion & Psychophysics 1.
Carroll, E.W., and M. Wong-Riley
1984 Quantitative light and electron microscopic analysis of cytochrome oxidase-
rich zones in VII prestriate cortex of the squirrel monkey. l Comp. Neurol.
222:1-17.
DeYoe, E.^, and D.C. Van Essen
1985 Segregation of efferent connections and receptive field properties in visual
area V2 of the macaque. Nature 317:58~1.
1988 Concurrent processing streams in monkey visual cortex. Trends in Neurosci.
11:219-226.
Julesz, B.
1984 ldward an axiomatic theory of preattentive vision. Pp. 585~12 in G.M.
Edelman, WE. Gall, and W.M. Cowan, eds., Dynamic Aspects of Neocoriical
Funcuan. New York: Wiley.
Livingstone, M.S., and D.H. Hubel
1984
Anatomy and physiology of a color system in the primate visual cortex. 1
Neurosci. 4:309-356.
Poggio, G.F.
1984 Processing of stereoscopic information in primate visual cortex. Pp. 613~34
in G.M. Edelman, WE. Gall, and W.Nl. Cowan, eds., Dynamic Aspects of
Neocortical Funcuen. New York: Wiley.
Ship, S., and S. Zeki
1985 Segregation of pathways leading from area V2 to areas V4 and V5 of
macaque monkey visual cortex. Nature 315:32:2-325.
Tootell, R.B.H, M.S. Silverman, R.L" DeValois, and G.H. Jacobs
1983 Functional organization of the second cortical visual area in primates.
Science 220:737-739.
OCR for page 23
INFORMATION PROCESSINGIN THE PRIMATE VISUALSYSTEM
23
Van Essen, D.C
1985 Functional organization of primate visual cortex. Pp. 259-329 in E.G. Jones
and A. Peters, eds., Cerebral Cortex, Vol. 3. New York: Plenum Press.
Van Essen, D.C, and J.H.R Maunsell
19B3 Hierarchical organization and functional streams in the visual oozes. Mends
us Neurosci. 6:37~375.
Van Essen, D.C and C.H. Anderson
1990 Information processing strategies and pathways in the primate retina and
visual oorta`. In S.F. Zornetzer, J.L Davis, and C Law, eds., Introduction
to Neural and Ekc~onic Networks. Orlando, Fla.: Academic Press.
Van Essen, D.C, EN DeYoe, J.F. Olavarna, JJ. Knierim, D. Sagi, J.M. Fox, and B. Jules
1989 Neural responses to static and moving texture patterns in visual cortex of
the macaque monkey. Pp. 49~7 in D.M.K. Lam and C. Gilbert, eds., Neural
Mechanisms of Visual Perception. Woodland, lilac.: Portfolio Publishing.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
visual cortex