Sparse Coding and Decorrelation in Primary Visual Cortex during Natural Vision

Theoretical studies suggest that primary visual cortex (area V1) uses a sparse code to efficiently represent natural scenes. This issue was investigated by recording from V1 neurons in awake behaving macaques during both free viewing of natural scenes and conditions simulating natural vision. Stimul...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) 2000-02, Vol.287 (5456), p.1273-1276
Main Authors: Vinje, William E., Gallant, Jack L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Action Potentials
Anatomical correlates of behavior
Animals
Behavioral neuroscience
Behavioral psychophysiology
Biological and medical sciences
Brain
Coding
Evoked Potentials, Visual
Eye Movements
Eyes
Eyes & eyesight
Feedback (Response)
Fixation, Ocular
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Kurtosis
Macaca
Macaca mulatta
Monkeys & apes
Neurons
Neurons - physiology
Neuroscience
Nonparametric Statistics
Photic Stimulation
Population distributions
Population growth
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Saccades
Space life sciences
Stimulation
Stimuli
Vision
Vision, Ocular - physiology
Visual Cortex - physiology
Visual Perception - physiology
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Summary:Theoretical studies suggest that primary visual cortex (area V1) uses a sparse code to efficiently represent natural scenes. This issue was investigated by recording from V1 neurons in awake behaving macaques during both free viewing of natural scenes and conditions simulating natural vision. Stimulation of the nonclassical receptive field increases the selectivity and sparseness of individual V1 neurons, increases the sparseness of the population response distribution, and strongly decorrelates the responses of neuron pairs. These effects are due to both excitatory and suppressive modulation of the classical receptive field by the nonclassical receptive field and do not depend critically on the spatiotemporal structure of the stimuli. During natural vision, the classical and nonclassical receptive fields function together to form a sparse representation of the visual world. This sparse code may be computationally efficient for both early vision and higher visual processing.
ISSN:0036-8075
1095-9203
DOI:10.1126/science.287.5456.1273