August 2010
Volume 10, Issue 7
Free
Vision Sciences Society Annual Meeting Abstract  |   August 2010
Encoding a salient stimulus in the lateral intraparietal area (LIP) during a passive fixation task
Author Affiliations
  • Fabrice Arcizet
    UCLA, Department of Neurobiology, David Geffen School of Medicine
  • Koorosh Mirpour
    UCLA, Department of Neurobiology, David Geffen School of Medicine
  • Weisong Ong
    UCLA, Department of Neurobiology, David Geffen School of Medicine, Interdepartmental PhD Program for Neuroscience
  • James Bisley
    UCLA, Department of Neurobiology, David Geffen School of Medicine, Jules Stein Eye Institute, Department of Psychology and the Brain Research Institute
Journal of Vision August 2010, Vol.10, 910. doi:https://doi.org/10.1167/10.7.910
  • Views
  • Share
  • Tools
    • Alerts
      ×
      This feature is available to authenticated users only.
      Sign In or Create an Account ×
    • Get Citation

      Fabrice Arcizet, Koorosh Mirpour, Weisong Ong, James Bisley; Encoding a salient stimulus in the lateral intraparietal area (LIP) during a passive fixation task. Journal of Vision 2010;10(7):910. https://doi.org/10.1167/10.7.910.

      Download citation file:


      © ARVO (1962-2015); The Authors (2016-present)

      ×
  • Supplements
Abstract

When exploring a visual scene, some objects preferentially grab our attention because of their intrinsic properties. In this study, we examined the responses of neurons in LIP to salient stimuli while naive animals performed a passive fixation task. We defined the salient stimulus as a color popout among stimuli of another color; either red or green. The animals started a trial by fixating a central spot after which a circular array of 6 stimuli was flashed for 750 ms. The array was arranged so that only one of the stimuli was in the receptive field (RF). The animals had to keep fixation to be rewarded. We used 4 different conditions: the field condition, in which all the stimuli had the same color; the distractor condition, in which the salient stimulus was presented outside the receptive field, so a distractor was inside the RF; the popout condition, in which the salient stimulus was inside the RF; and the singleton condition, in which only a single stimulus was presented inside the RF. We recorded from 42 LIP neurons and found that the mean response to a salient stimulus was significantly higher than the mean response to a distractor, but significantly lower than the mean response to a singleton. The time at which the popout activity rose above the distractor activity was relatively early suggesting that bottom-up information from early visual areas converges at LIP. Interestingly, there was a tight correlation in response to the popouts and distractors of similar colors, suggesting gain control. We also found that some LIP neurons prefer a particular color, but these neurons still had elevated responses to a popout compared to a distractor, consistent with the presence of gain control. Together these results indicate that LIP highlights salient stimuli even when they are task irrelevant.

Arcizet, F. Mirpour, K. Ong, W. Bisley, J. (2010). Encoding a salient stimulus in the lateral intraparietal area (LIP) during a passive fixation task [Abstract]. Journal of Vision, 10(7):910, 910a, http://www.journalofvision.org/content/10/7/910, doi:10.1167/10.7.910. [CrossRef]
Footnotes
 Klingenstein Fund, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, McKnight Foundation and the National Eye Institute (R01EY019273-01).
×
×

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

Sign in or purchase a subscription to access this content. ×

You must be signed into an individual account to use this feature.

×