Abstract
There is by now overwhelming evidence that two of the primary characteristics of visual cells first seen at the striate level are those of orientation and spatial frequency selectivity (see De Valois & De Valois, 1988, for summary and discussion). Although lateral geniculate neurons show some minor degree of selectivity for both orientation and spatial frequency, they are rather broadly tuned along both parameters. Striate cortex neurons vary widely in their bandwidths along these dimensions, but on average they are much more narrowly tuned than geniculate cells. The average orientation bandwidth (full bandwidth at half amplitude response), in both cat and monkey striate cells, is about 45°, 1/4 of the total 180° range of possible orientations. The average spatial frequency bandwidths of cells are quite comparable: about 1.3 octaves, which is about 1/4 of the total ca. 5 octave range of spatial frequencies to which we are sensitive at a given eccentricity (De Valois, Hepler & Yund, 1982; De Valois, Albrecht & Thorell, 1982).
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De Valois, R.L. (1991). Orientation and Spatial Frequency Selectivity: Properties and Modular Organization. In: Valberg, A., Lee, B.B. (eds) From Pigments to Perception. NATO ASI Series, vol 203. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-3718-2_31
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-3718-2_31
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