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An oblique effect in human primary visual cortex

Nature Neuroscience volume 3, pages 535–536 (2000)Cite this article

An Erratum to this article was published on 01 December 2000

Abstract

Visual perception critically depends on orientation-specific signals that arise early in visual processing. Humans show greater behavioral sensitivity to gratings with horizontal or vertical (0°/90°; ‘cardinal’) orientations than to other, ‘oblique’ orientations. Here we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure an asymmetry in the responses of human primary visual cortex (V1) to oriented stimuli. We found that neural responses in V1 were larger for cardinal stimuli than for oblique (45°/135°) stimuli. Thus the fMRI pattern in V1 closely resembled subjects' behavioral judgments; responses in V1 were greater for those orientations that yielded better perceptual performance.

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Figure 1: fMRI and behavioral measurements of an oblique effect in human striate cortex.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Mark Cohen for his assistance with fMRI. We also thank John Mazziotta, the UCLA Brain Mapping Medical Organization, the Ahmanson Foundation, the Pierson-Lovelace Foundation, the Tamkin Foundation and the Jennifer Jones-Simon Foundation for their support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, Box 951563, Franz Hall, Los Angeles, 90095-1563, California, USA

    Christopher S. Furmanski & Stephen A. Engel

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  1. Christopher S. Furmanski
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  2. Stephen A. Engel
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Correspondence to Christopher S. Furmanski.

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Furmanski, C., Engel, S. An oblique effect in human primary visual cortex. Nat Neurosci 3, 535–536 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/75702

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