Less than meets the eye: the functional relevance of early visual cortex across the visual domain

Learning the structure of the environment is critical for interpreting the current scene and predicting upcoming events. However, the brain mechanisms that support our ability to translate knowledge about scene statistics to sensory predictions remain largely unknown. Here we provide evidence that learning of temporal regularities shapes representations in early visual cortex that relate to our ability to predict sensory events. We tested the participants' ability to predict the orientation of a test stimulus after exposure to sequences of leftward- or rightward-oriented gratings. Using fMRI decoding, we identified brain patterns related to the observers' visual predictions rather than stimulus-driven activity. Decoding of predicted orientations following structured sequences was enhanced after training, while decoding of cued orientations following exposure to random sequences did not change. These predictive representations appear to be driven by the same large-scale neural populations that encode actual stimulus orientation and to be specific to the learned sequence structure. Thus our findings provide evidence that learning temporal structures supports our ability to predict future events by reactivating selective sensory representations as early as in primary visual cortex.

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Reinstatement of Associative Memories in Early Visual Cortex Is Signaled by the Hippocampus

Journal of Neuroscience ◽

10.1523/jneurosci.0805-14.2014 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 34 (22) ◽

pp. 7493-7500 ◽

Cited By ~ 75

Author(s):

S. E. Bosch ◽

J. F. M. Jehee ◽

G. Fernandez ◽

C. F. Doeller

Keyword(s):

Visual Cortex ◽

Associative Memories ◽

Early Visual Cortex

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Timing of activity in early visual cortex as revealed by transcranial magnetic stimulation

Neuroreport ◽

10.1097/00001756-199908200-00035 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 10 (12) ◽

pp. 2631-2634 ◽

Cited By ~ 92

Author(s):

Erik Corthout ◽

Bob Uttl ◽

Vincent Walsh ◽

Mark Hallett ◽

Alan Cowey

Keyword(s):

Visual Cortex ◽

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation ◽

Magnetic Stimulation ◽

Early Visual Cortex

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Preparatory Activity in Posterior Temporal Cortex Causally Contributes to Object Detection in Scenes

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/jocn_a_00845 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 27 (11) ◽

pp. 2117-2125 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

Reshanne R. Reeder ◽

Francesca Perini ◽

Marius V. Peelen

Keyword(s):

Visual Cortex ◽

Object Detection ◽

Activity Patterns ◽

Temporal Cortex ◽

Relevant Information ◽

Visual Selective Attention ◽

Object Categories ◽

Preparatory Attention ◽

Preparatory Activity ◽

Early Visual Cortex

Theories of visual selective attention propose that top–down preparatory attention signals mediate the selection of task-relevant information in cluttered scenes. Neuroimaging and electrophysiology studies have provided correlative evidence for this hypothesis, finding increased activity in target-selective neural populations in visual cortex in the period between a search cue and target onset. In this study, we used online TMS to test whether preparatory neural activity in visual cortex is causally involved in naturalistic object detection. In two experiments, participants detected the presence of object categories (cars, people) in a diverse set of photographs of real-world scenes. TMS was applied over a region in posterior temporal cortex identified by fMRI as carrying category-specific preparatory activity patterns. Results showed that TMS applied over posterior temporal cortex before scene onset (−200 and −100 msec) impaired the detection of object categories in subsequently presented scenes, relative to vertex and early visual cortex stimulation. This effect was specific to category level detection and was related to the type of attentional template participants adopted, with the strongest effects observed in participants adopting category level templates. These results provide evidence for a causal role of preparatory attention in mediating the detection of objects in cluttered daily-life environments.

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Oscillations and Synchrony in the Visual Cortex: Evidence for Their Functional Relevance

Oscillatory Event-Related Brain Dynamics ◽

10.1007/978-1-4899-1307-4_9 ◽

1994 ◽

pp. 99-114 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Pieter R. Roelfsema ◽

Andreas K. Engel ◽

Peter König ◽

Wolf Singer

Keyword(s):

Visual Cortex ◽

Functional Relevance

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Dissociating Reward- and Attention-driven Biasing of Global Feature-based Selection in Human Visual Cortex

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/jocn_a_01356 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 31 (4) ◽

pp. 469-481 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Haydee G. Garcia-Lazaro ◽

Mandy V. Bartsch ◽

Carsten N. Boehler ◽

Ruth M. Krebs ◽

Sarah E. Donohue ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Visual Cortex ◽

Target Selection ◽

Target Color ◽

Selective Area ◽

Early Visual Cortex ◽

Feature Based ◽

Irrelevant Color ◽

Task Irrelevant ◽

Open Question ◽

Attention Demands

Objects that promise rewards are prioritized for visual selection. The way this prioritization shapes sensory processing in visual cortex, however, is debated. It has been suggested that rewards motivate stronger attentional focusing, resulting in a modulation of sensory selection in early visual cortex. An open question is whether those reward-driven modulations would be independent of similar modulations indexing the selection of attended features that are not associated with reward. Here, we use magnetoencephalography in human observers to investigate whether the modulations indexing global color-based selection in visual cortex are separable for target- and (monetary) reward-defining colors. To assess the underlying global color-based activity modulation, we compare the event-related magnetic field response elicited by a color probe in the unattended hemifield drawn either in the target color, the reward color, both colors, or a neutral task-irrelevant color. To test whether target and reward relevance trigger separable modulations, we manipulate attention demands on target selection while keeping reward-defining experimental parameters constant. Replicating previous observations, we find that reward and target relevance produce almost indistinguishable gain modulations in ventral extratriate cortex contralateral to the unattended color probe. Importantly, increasing attention demands on target discrimination increases the response to the target-defining color, whereas the response to the rewarded color remains largely unchanged. These observations indicate that, although task relevance and reward influence the very same feature-selective area in extrastriate visual cortex, the associated modulations are largely independent.

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