Article abstract

Nature Neuroscience 10, 108 - 116 (2007)
Published online: 17 December 2006 | doi:10.1038/nn1823

Effects of task demands on the responses of color-selective neurons in the inferior temporal cortex

Kowa Koida1 & Hidehiko Komatsu1,2

Categorization and fine discrimination are two different functions in visual perception, and we can switch between these two functions depending on the situation or task demands. To explore how visual cortical neurons behave in such situations, we recorded the activities of color-selective neurons in the inferior temporal (IT) cortex of two monkeys trained to perform a color categorization task, a color discrimination task and a simple fixation task. Many IT neurons changed their activity depending upon the task, although color selectivity was well conserved. A majority of neurons showed stronger responses during the categorization task. Moreover, for the population of IT neurons as a whole, signals contributing to performing the categorization task were enhanced. These results imply that judgment of color category by color-selective IT neurons is facilitated during the categorization task and suppressed during the discrimination task as a consequence of task-dependent modulation of their activities.

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  1. Division of Sensory and Cognitive Information, National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Myodaiji, Okazaki, Aichi 444-8585, Japan.
  2. Department of Physiological Sciences, The Graduate University for Advanced Studies (SOKENDAI), Myodaiji, Okazaki, Aichi 444-8585, Japan.

Correspondence to: Hidehiko Komatsu1,2 e-mail: komatsu@nips.ac.jp

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