Summary
We have devised a measure of a retinal ganglion cell's sensitivity to changes in the spatial position of a grating stimulus. At maximum, this relative position sensitivity is a scaled product of the stimulus spatial frequency and the cell's fundamental component of response to that spatial frequency. We obtained the relative position sensitivity as a function of spatial frequency for 13 X-cells and 14 Y-cells. X-cell functions peak at significantly higher spatial frequencies than do those of Y-cells. At their peaks, X-cells display significantly higher values of relative position sensitivity than do Y-cells. However, Y-cells have higher position sensitivity at lower spatial frequencies, but exhibit less of a range of variation from maximum to minimum than do X-cells. These results are consistent with a hypothesis that Y-cells provide the crucial substrate for form vision at lower spatial frequencies, while X-cells are important for details carried by the higher spatial frequencies.
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Supported by USPHS grants EY05241 and EY03038
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Sur, M., Sherman, S.M. The position sensitivity of retinal X- and Y-cells in cats. Exp Brain Res 56, 497–501 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00237990
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00237990