Global and fine information coded by single neurons in the temporal visual cortex

Yasuko Sugase (), Shigeru Yamane, Shoogo Ueno and Kenji Kawano
Additional contact information
Yasuko Sugase: Electrotechnical Laboratory
Shigeru Yamane: Electrotechnical Laboratory
Shoogo Ueno: Graduate School of Medicine, University of Tokyo
Kenji Kawano: Electrotechnical Laboratory

Nature, 1999, vol. 400, issue 6747, 869-873

Abstract: Abstract When we see a person's face, we can easily recognize their species, individual identity and emotional state. How does the brain represent such complex information? A substantial number of neurons in the macaque temporal cortex respond to faces1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12. However, the neuronal mechanisms underlying the processing ofcomplex information are not yet clear. Here we recorded the activity of single neurons in the temporal cortex of macaque monkeys while presenting visual stimuli consisting of geometric shapes, and monkey and human faces with various expressions. Information theory was used to investigate how well the neuronal responses could categorize the stimuli. We found that single neurons conveyed two different scales of facial information intheir firing patterns, starting at different latencies. Global information, categorizing stimuli as monkey faces, human faces or shapes, was conveyed in the earliest part of the responses. Fineinformation about identity or expression was conveyed later,beginning on average 51 ms after global information. We speculate that global information could be used as a ‘header’ to prepare destination areas for receiving more detailed information.

Date: 1999
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/23703 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:400:y:1999:i:6747:d:10.1038_23703

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/23703

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().