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Past and Present Ideas About How the Visual Scene Is Analyzed by the Brain

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Extrastriate Cortex in Primates

Part of the book series: Cerebral Cortex ((CECO,volume 12))

Abstract

The dominant view during the past 40 years has been that the visual system analyzes the visual scene by breaking it down into basic attributes such as color, form, motion, depth, and texture. It was proposed that individual, dedicated neurons and specific visual areas are devoted to the analysis of each of these attributes. Current research has challenged these views by emphasizing that neurons, especially in the cortex, have multifunctional properties and therefore serve as general-purpose analyzers rather than feature detectors. Consequently it appears that most extrastriate visual areas, rather than each being devoted to the analysis of a specific basic visual attribute, perform several different tasks and thereby engage in more advanced and complex analyses than had been realized.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, E25-634 MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02139, USA

    Peter H. Schiller

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  1. Peter H. Schiller
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurology, 2007 RCP, College of Medicine, University of Iowa, 52242-1053, Iowa City, Iowa, USA

    Kathleen S. Rockland

  2. Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, 37240, Nashville, Tennessee, USA

    Jon H. Kaas

  3. Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Alan Peters

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Schiller, P.H. (1997). Past and Present Ideas About How the Visual Scene Is Analyzed by the Brain. In: Rockland, K.S., Kaas, J.H., Peters, A. (eds) Extrastriate Cortex in Primates. Cerebral Cortex, vol 12. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-9625-4_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-9625-4_2

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