The dependence of response amplitude and variance of cat visual cortical neurones on stimulus contrast (original) (raw)
Summary
For neurones in the cat's striate cortex, we examined the dependence of response on the contrast of moving sinusoidal gratings. Most neurones showed a clear threshold contrast below which no response was elicited. Such thresholds presumably contribute to the animal's behavioural threshold, which should not be accounted for solely in terms of the detection of a signal in the presence of spontaneous “noise”. Above threshold, the response amplitude usually increased linearly with contrast until it began to saturate at the highest contrasts. The variance of the response increased with its amplitude; this finding perhaps underlies the Weber-Fechner relation for psychophysical contrast discrimination.
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- J. A. Movshon
Present address: Department of Psychology, New York University, 6 Washington Place, 10003, New York, NY, USA - I. D. Thompson
Present address: Physiological Laboratory, South Parks Road, Oxford, England
Authors and Affiliations
- The Physiological Laboratory, CB2 3EG, Cambridge, England
D. J. Tolhurst, J. A. Movshon & I. D. Thompson
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- D. J. Tolhurst
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Tolhurst, D.J., Movshon, J.A. & Thompson, I.D. The dependence of response amplitude and variance of cat visual cortical neurones on stimulus contrast.Exp Brain Res 41, 414–419 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00238900
- Received: 15 February 1980
- Issue Date: February 1981
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00238900