Visual processing during decision making and active vision

Abstract:

Visual perception is often characterized as a process of encoding and decoding. Encoding describes the representation of visual features (e.g., orientation and direction) by the spiking activity of cortical neural populations. Decoding is the process of reading out these neural representations (by "decision" areas) to support behavior. As such, most visual neuroscience experiments are designed to isolate these processes, where subjects who have been trained to keep their eyes still make judgments about simple visual stimuli. In the first part of the talk, I will discuss how the primate dorsal stream encodes and decodes information about visual motion. Although many areas in this pathway (e.g., MT and LIP) have been studied extensively, I will describe how new causal and statistical interrogations can give new insight into the computations and circuits underlying perceptual decisions. In the second part of the talk, I will describe ongoing efforts to study visual processing during natural vision. Using one of the simplest foveated mammals (marmoset monkey) as a model system, I describe how saccadic eye movements modify the processing and transmission of sensory signals in the primary visual cortex (V1). 

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