A new psychophysical estimation of the receptive field size

NEUROSCIENCE LETTERS

卷:438

Article

Yazdanbakhsh, Arash^1,2  Gori, Simone³ 

[1] Boston Univ, Cognit & Neural Syst Dept, Boston, MA 02215 USA

[2] Harvard Univ, Sch Med, Dept Neurobiol, Boston, MA 02115 USA

[3] Univ Trieste, Dipartimento Psicol, I-34133 Trieste, Italy

关键词: receptive field;    visual illusion;    aperture problem;    visual field eccentricity;    psychophysics;    motion;    fMRI;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.neulet.2008.04.040

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

When a line extends beyond the width of an aperture, its direction of motion cannot be detected correctly. Only the component of motion perpendicular to the line is detectable (aperture problem). Early visual areas face the same aperture problem because receptive field sizes are relatively small. The susceptibility of early visual areas to the aperture problem opens an opportunity to measure the aperture width of a receptive field psychophysically that can be used to estimate the receptive field size. We found an already established visual illusion (the rotating tilted lines illusion or RTLI) can be used to measure the aperture size and hence estimate the receptive field size. To estimate the receptive field size, we conducted a psychophysical experiment in which the radii and tilted line length of RTLI were systematically changed. Our psychophysical estimation of receptive field size strongly corresponds with the previous measures of receptive field size using electrophysiological and fMRI methods. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.

【 授权许可】

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