Cells in the Visual Cortex are not just Local Receptive-Field Filters

Abstract

The famous early publications about the receptive fields (RFs) of sensory neurons (Kuffler 1953; Mountcastle 1957; Hubel and Wiesel 1962) have guided sensory neurophysiology for many years. They have stimulated the detailed investigation of this single-cell property, i.e., the search for the optimal sensory stimulus to activate a nerve cell. In many studies, the early findings by Hubel and Wiesel (1962) about the retinotopic organization of the RFs in the primary visual cortex and their highly specific selection of external information (most commonly a properly oriented light bar that moves across the RF) have been confirmed in several species. This led to the commonly accepted concept that the cells in the primary visual cortex act as local RF filters (Barlow, this volume). Visual stimuli that do not match well with the cells’ RF structures are blocked by the filters (or at preceding levels in the thalamus or retina). They are not represented in the primary visual cortex or beyond. Diffuse luminance changes belong to this category of “virtually ineffective” stimuli (Hubel and Wiesel 1962).