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Stereoscopic depth processing in the visual cortex: a coarse-to-fine mechanism

Nature Neuroscience volume 6, pages 59–65 (2003)Cite this article

Abstract

For binocular animals viewing a three-dimensional scene, the left and right eyes receive slightly different information, and the brain uses this 'binocular disparity' to interpret stereoscopic depth. An important theoretical conjecture in this mechanism is that coarse processing precedes and constrains finely detailed processing. We present three types of neurophysiological data from the cat's visual cortex that are consistent with a temporal coarse-to-fine tuning of disparity information. First, the disparity tuning of cortical cells generally sharpened during the time course of response. Second, cells responsive to large and small spatial scale had relatively shorter and longer temporal latencies, respectively. Third, cross-correlation analysis between simultaneously recorded pairs of cortical cells showed that connections between disparity-tuned neurons were generally stronger for coarse-to-fine processing than for fine-to-coarse processing. These results are consistent with theoretical and behavioral studies and suggest that rapid, coarse percepts are refined over time in stereoscopic depth perception.

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Figure 1: An example of the temporal coarse-to-fine disparity tuning of complex cells.
Figure 2: Three examples of complex cells show that disparity tuning becomes sharper with increasing correlation delay.
Figure 3: A population summary of changes in disparity frequency and disparity range.
Figure 4: Neurons with higher disparity frequency and smaller disparity range tend to have greater optimal correlation delays.
Figure 5: Examples of fine-to-coarse and coarse-to-fine connections between disparity-tuned complex cells.
Figure 6: Asymmetries in coarse-to-fine and fine-to-coarse connections.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by research and CORE grants (EY01175 and EY03716) from the National Eye Institute. We gratefully acknowledge the use of data collected by I. Ohzawa and A. Anzai.

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  1. Michael D. Menz

    Present address: Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute, 2318 Fillmore Street, San Francisco, California, 94115, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Group in Vision Science, School of Optometry, and the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, 94720-2020, California, USA

    Ralph D. Freeman

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Menz, M., Freeman, R. Stereoscopic depth processing in the visual cortex: a coarse-to-fine mechanism. Nat Neurosci 6, 59–65 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn986

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