Similar neural representations of the target for saccades and perception during search.

Full Abstract

Are the body's actions and the mind's perceptions the result of shared neural processing, or are they performed largely independently? The brain has two major processing streams, and some have proposed that this division segregates visual processing for action and perception. The ventral pathway is claimed to support conscious experience (perception), whereas the dorsal pathway is claimed to support the control of movement (action). Others have argued that perception and action share much of their visual processing within the primate cortex. During visual search, the brain performs a sophisticated deployment of eye movements (saccadic actions) to gather information to subserve perceptual judgments. The relationship between the neural mechanisms mediating perception and action in visual search remains unexplored. Here, we investigate the visual representation of target information in the human brain, both for perceptual decisions and for saccadic actions during visual search. We use classification image analysis, a form of reverse correlation, to estimate the behavioral receptive fields of the visual mechanisms responsible for saccadic and perceptual responses during the same visual search task. Results show that the behavioral receptive fields mediating the perceptual decisions are indistinguishable from those driving the oculomotor decisions, suggesting that similar neural mechanisms are responsible for both perception and oculomotor action during search. Diverging target representations would result in an inefficient coupling between eye movement planning and perceptual judgments. Thus, a common target representation would be more optimal and might be expected to have evolved through natural selection in the neural systems responsible for visual search.

Learn Faster Today Improve your study skills

Author information

Author/s: Eckstein, Miguel P (MP); Beutter, Brent R (BR); Pham, Binh T (BT); Shimozaki, Steven S (SS); Stone, Leland S (LS);

Affiliation: Vision and Image Understanding Laboratory, Department of Psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA. eckstein(-atsign-)psych.ucsb.edu

Grants: 5R01EY15925-2 (Agency:NEI NIH HHS)

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

Journal: The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience (J Neurosci), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2007-Feb; vol 27 (issue 6) : pp 1266-70

Dates: Created 2007/02/08; Completed 2007/03/06; Revised 2007/11/14;

PMID: 17287501, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

Comments and Corrections

CommentIn: J Neurosci. 2007 Apr 11;27(15):3935-6. (PMID: 17428966)

External Links for this article (including full text providers, if available):

Click Electronic Full-text Provider Links to see options for finding the electronic full text links to this article. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text. See our FAQ for information on finding FREE full text articles.

This article may also be located in paper journal collections available in many libraries. Use the Journal and Publication Information above to find the full article.

MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Decision Making - physiology
Fixation, Ocular
Frontal Lobe - physiology
Humans
Judgment - physiology
Luminescence
Parietal Lobe - physiology
Pattern Recognition, Visual - physiology

Photic Stimulation
Psychomotor Performance - physiology
Reaction Time
Saccades - physiology
Stochastic Processes
Temporal Lobe - physiology
Visual Cortex - physiology
Visual Pathways - physiology

These are the highest related articles currently in the database:

See 100+ related articles.