Spatial frequency selectivity of cells in macaque visual cortex
Abstract
We measured the spatial frequency contrast sensitivity of cells in the primate striate cortex at two different eccentricities to provide quantitative statistics from a large population of cells. Distributions of the peak frequencies and bandwidths are presented and examined in relationship to (a) each other, (b) absolute contrast sensitivity, (c) orientation tuning, (d)retinal eccentricity, and (e) cell type. Simple and complex cells are examined in relationship to linear/nonlinear (that is, X/Y) properties; a procedure is described which provides a simple, reliable and quantitative method for classifying and describing striate cells. Among other things, it is shown that (a) many stirate cells have quite narrow spatial bandwidths and (b) at a given retinal eccentricity, the distribution of peak frequency covers a wide range of frequencies; these findings support the basic multiple channel notion. The orientation tuning and spatial frequency tuning which occurs at the level of striate cortex (in a positively correlated fashion) suggests that the cells might best be considered as two-dimensional spatial filters.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The parameters of the S1 and C1 model units were constrained by physiology data so that their tuning properties would agree with those of cortical simple and complex cells.
“For instance, the parameters (see SI Table 1) of the S 1 and C 1 model units were constrained by physiology data (1, 36, 37) so that their tuning properties would agree with those of cortical simple and complex cells (see SI Text ).”
From A feedforward architecture accounts for rapid categorization (2007) · cites this paper as [37]
Cites
Receptive fields, binocular interaction and functional architecture in the cat’s visual cortex
Hubel, D. H., & Wiesel, T. N. (1962) · The Journal of Physiology · doi:10.1113/jphysiol.1962.sp006837 · Cited by 13,680 · see citing works
Handbook of Sensory Physiology
Sanders, M. D. (1975) · British Journal of Ophthalmology · doi:10.1136/bjo.59.2.111-c · Cited by 7,166 · see citing works
Receptive fields and functional architecture of monkey striate cortex
Hubel, D. H., & Wiesel, T. N. (1968) · The Journal of Physiology · doi:10.1113/jphysiol.1968.sp008455 · Cited by 6,520 · see citing works
Receptive fields of single neurones in the cat's striate cortex
Hubel, D. H., & Wiesel, T. N. (1959) · The Journal of Physiology · doi:10.1113/jphysiol.1959.sp006308 · Cited by 4,653 · see citing works
The contrast sensitivity of retinal ganglion cells of the cat
Enroth-Cugell, C., & Robson, J. G. (1966) · The Journal of Physiology · doi:10.1113/jphysiol.1966.sp008107 · Cited by 2,625 · see citing works
Blakemore, C. B., & Campbell, F. W. (1969) · The Journal of Physiology · doi:10.1113/jphysiol.1969.sp008862 · Cited by 2,032 · see citing works
Carterette, E. C., & Friedman, M. P. (1977) · Optometry and Vision Science · doi:10.1097/00006324-197710000-00013 · Cited by 1,566 · see citing works
Gilbert, C. D., & Wiesel, T. N. (1979) · Nature · doi:10.1038/280120a0 · Cited by 1,008 · see citing works
Hubel, D. H., & Wiesel, T. N. (1974) · The Journal of Comparative Neurology · doi:10.1002/cne.901580305 · Cited by 897 · see citing works
Spatial summation in the receptive fields of simple cells in the cat's striate cortex.
Movshon, J. A., Thompson, I. D., & Tolhurst, D. J. (1978) · The Journal of Physiology · doi:10.1113/jphysiol.1978.sp012488 · Cited by 890 · see citing works
Spatial and temporal contrast sensitivity of neurones in areas 17 and 18 of the cat's visual cortex.
Movshon, J. A., Thompson, I. D., & Tolhurst, D. J. (1978) · The Journal of Physiology · doi:10.1113/jphysiol.1978.sp012490 · Cited by 667 · see citing works
The visual cortex as a spatial frequency analyser
Maffei, L., & Fiorentini, A. (1973) · Vision Research · doi:10.1016/0042-6989(73)90201-0 · Cited by 627 · see citing works
Dreher, B., Fukada, Y., & Rodieck, R. W. (1976) · The Journal of Physiology · doi:10.1113/jphysiol.1976.sp011429 · Cited by 548 · see citing works
Spatial-Frequency Channels in Human Vision*
Sachs, M. B., Nachmias, J., & Robson, J. G. (1971) · Journal of the Optical Society of America · doi:10.1364/josa.61.001176 · Cited by 506 · see citing works
Quantitative analysis of retinal ganglion cell classifications.
Hochstein, S., & Shapley, R. M. (1976) · The Journal of Physiology · doi:10.1113/jphysiol.1976.sp011594 · Cited by 478 · see citing works
Schiller, P. H., Finlay, B. L., & Volman, S. F. (1976) · Journal of Neurophysiology · doi:10.1152/jn.1976.39.6.1288 · Cited by 458 · see citing works
Valois, R. L. D., Morgan, H. C., & Snodderly, D. M. (1974) · Vision Research · doi:10.1016/0042-6989(74)90118-7 · Cited by 445 · see citing works
Physiological Studies on Neural Mechanisms of Visual Localization and Discrimination
Talbot, S. A., & Marshall, W. H. (1941) · American Journal of Ophthalmology · doi:10.1016/s0002-9394(41)91363-6 · Cited by 437 · see citing works
The spatial selectivity of the visual cells of the cat
Campbell, F. W., Cooper, G. F., & Enroth‐Cugell, C. (1969) · The Journal of Physiology · doi:10.1113/jphysiol.1969.sp008861 · Cited by 392 · see citing works
Cell structure and function in the visual cortex of the cat
Kelly, J. P., & Essen, D. C. V. (1974) · The Journal of Physiology · doi:10.1113/jphysiol.1974.sp010541 · Cited by 265 · see citing works
Hoffmann, K. ‐., & Stone, J. (1971) · Brain Research · doi:10.1016/0006-8993(71)90340-4 · Cited by 262 · see citing works
Channels in Vision: Basic Aspects
Braddick, O., Campbell, F. W., & Atkinson, J. (1978) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-642-46354-9_1 · Cited by 236 · see citing works
Valois, R. L. D., & Valois, K. K. D. (1980) · Annual Review of Psychology · doi:10.1146/annurev.ps.31.020180.001521 · Cited by 233 · see citing works
Responses of striate cortex cells to grating and checkerboard patterns.
Valois, K. K. D., Valois, R. L. D., & Yund, E. W. (1979) · The Journal of Physiology · doi:10.1113/jphysiol.1979.sp012827 · Cited by 217 · see citing works
Quantitative studies of single-cell properties in monkey striate cortex. III. Spatial frequency
Schiller, P. H., Finlay, B. L., & Volman, S. F. (1976) · Journal of Neurophysiology · doi:10.1152/jn.1976.39.6.1334 · Cited by 207 · see citing works
Wilson, J. R., & Sherman, S. M. (1976) · Journal of Neurophysiology · doi:10.1152/jn.1976.39.3.512 · Cited by 179 · see citing works
Cool, S. J., & Smith, E. L., III (1978) · Springer series in optical sciences/SPringer series in optical sciences · doi:10.1007/978-3-540-35397-3 · Cited by 176 · see citing works
Ikeda, H., & Wright, M. J. (1975) · Experimental Brain Research · doi:10.1007/bf00234672 · Cited by 158 · see citing works
Glezer, V. D., Ivanoff, V. A., & Tscherbach, T. A. (1973) · Vision Research · doi:10.1016/0042-6989(73)90061-8 · Cited by 104 · see citing works
Visual Cortical Neurons: Are Bars or Gratings the Optimal Stimuli?
Albrecht, D. G., Valois, R. L. D., & Thorell, L. G. (1980) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.6765993 · Cited by 98 · see citing works
Self-citationSekuler, R. (1974) · Annual Review of Psychology · doi:10.1146/annurev.ps.25.020174.001211 · Cited by 98 · see citing works
Cortical Cells: Bar and Edge Detectors, or Spatial Frequency Filters?
Valois, R. L. D., Albrecht, D. G., & Thorell, L. G. (1978) · Springer series in optical sciences/SPringer series in optical sciences · doi:10.1007/978-3-540-35397-3_49 · Cited by 71 · see citing works
Self-citationQuantitative prediction of line spread function measurements: Implications for channel bandwidths
Wilson, H. R. (1978) · Vision Research · doi:10.1016/0042-6989(78)90062-7 · Cited by 66 · see citing works
Spatial Frequency Channels: Neural Mechanisms
Maffei, L. (1978) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-642-46354-9_2 · Cited by 55 · see citing works
Striate cortex responses to periodic patterns with and without the fundamental harmonics
Albrecht, D. G., & Valois, R. L. D. (1981) · The Journal of Physiology · doi:10.1113/jphysiol.1981.sp013922 · Cited by 47 · see citing works
Self-citationThe spatial selectivity of visual cells of the cat and the squirrel monkey.
Campbell, F. W., Gf, C., Robson, J. G., et al. (1969) · PubMed · Cited by 35 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Deep learning in neural networks: an overview
Schmidhuber, J. (2015) · Neural Networks · doi:10.1016/j.neunet.2014.09.003 · Cited by 18,570 · see citing works
Distributed hierarchical processing in the primate cerebral cortex
Felleman, D. J., & Van Essen, D. C. (1991) · Cerebral Cortex · doi:10.1093/cercor/1.1.1 · Cited by 7,783 · see citing works
Emergence of simple-cell receptive field properties by learning a sparse code for natural images
Olshausen, B. A., & Field, D. J. (1996) · Nature · doi:10.1038/381607a0 · Cited by 5,694 · see citing works
Sparse coding with an overcomplete basis set: A strategy employed by V1?
Olshausen, B. A., & Field, D. J. (1997) · Vision Research · doi:10.1016/s0042-6989(97)00169-7 · Cited by 3,642 · see citing works
Relations between the statistics of natural images and the response properties of cortical cells
Field, D. J. (1987) · Journal of the Optical Society of America A · doi:10.1364/josaa.4.002379 · Cited by 3,241 · see citing works
Daugman, J. G. (1985) · Journal of the Optical Society of America A · doi:10.1364/josaa.2.001160 · Cited by 3,219 · see citing works
Neuronal Synchrony: A Versatile Code for the Definition of Relations?
Singer, W. (1999) · Neuron · doi:10.1016/s0896-6273(00)80821-1 · Cited by 2,581 · see citing works
Unsupervised texture segmentation using Gabor filters
Jain, A. K., & Farrokhnia, F. (1991) · Pattern Recognition · doi:10.1016/0031-3203(91)90143-s · Cited by 2,182 · see citing works
Robust Object Recognition with Cortex-Like Mechanisms
Serre, T., Wolf, L., Bileschi, S., Riesenhuber, M., & Poggio, T. (2007) · IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence · doi:10.1109/tpami.2007.56 · Cited by 1,667 · see citing works
Information processing in the primate visual system: an integrated systems perspective
Van Essen, D. C., Anderson, C. H., & Felleman, D. J. (1992) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1734518 · Cited by 1,266 · see citing works
Independent component filters of natural images compared with simple cells in primary visual cortex
van Hateren, J. H., & van der Schaaf, A. (1998) · Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rspb.1998.0303 · Cited by 1,106 · see citing works
A feedforward architecture accounts for rapid categorization
Serre, T., Oliva, A., & Poggio, T. (2007) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.0700622104 · Cited by 918 · see citing works
Contextual modulation in primary visual cortex
Zipser, K., Lamme, V. A. F., & Schiller, P. H. (1996) · The Journal of Neuroscience · doi:10.1523/jneurosci.16-22-07376.1996 · Cited by 873 · see citing works
Visual Response Properties of Striate Cortical Neurons Projecting to Area MT in Macaque Monkeys
Movshon, J. A., & Newsome, W. T. (1996) · The Journal of Neuroscience · doi:10.1523/jneurosci.16-23-07733.1996 · Cited by 651 · see citing works
Visual features of intermediate complexity and their use in classification
Ullman, S., Vidal-Naquet, M., & Sali, E. (2002) · Nature Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/nn870 · Cited by 600 · see citing works
von der Malsburg, C. (1999) · Neuron · doi:10.1016/s0896-6273(00)80825-9 · Cited by 501 · see citing works
A Review of Recent Advances in Surface Defect Detection using Texture analysis Techniques
Xie, X. (2008) · ELCVIA Electronic Letters on Computer Vision and Image Analysis · doi:10.5565/rev/elcvia.268 · Cited by 500 · see citing works
Visual dysfunction in Parkinson’s disease
Weil, R. S., Schrag, A. E., Warren, J. D., Crutch, S. J., Lees, A. J., & Morris, H. R. (2016) · Brain · doi:10.1093/brain/aww175 · Cited by 481 · see citing works
Motion selectivity and the contrast-response function of simple cells in the visual cortex
Albrecht, D. G., & Geisler, W. S. (1991) · Visual Neuroscience · doi:10.1017/s0952523800010336 · Cited by 433 · see citing works
Self-citationNeuronal basis of contrast discrimination
Boynton, G. M., Demb, J. B., Glover, G. H., & Heeger, D. J. (1999) · Vision Research · doi:10.1016/s0042-6989(98)00113-8 · Cited by 391 · see citing works
Ecological statistics of Gestalt laws for the perceptual organization of contours
Elder, J. H., & Goldberg, R. M. (2002) · Journal of Vision · doi:10.1167/2.4.5 · Cited by 333 · see citing works
The neural bases of spatial frequency processing during scene perception
Kauffmann, L., Ramanoël, S., & Peyrin, C. (2014) · Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience · doi:10.3389/fnint.2014.00037 · Cited by 210 · see citing works
Rates and rhythms: a synergistic view of frequency and temporal coding in neuronal networks
Ainsworth, M., Lee, S., Cunningham, M. O., Traub, R. D., Kopell, N. J., & Whittington, M. A. (2012) · Neuron · doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2012.08.004 · Cited by 149 · see citing works
Laminar dependence of neuronal correlations in visual cortex
Smith, M. A., Jia, X., Zandvakili, A., & Kohn, A. (2013) · Journal of Neurophysiology · doi:10.1152/jn.00846.2012 · Cited by 129 · see citing works
Capabilities of monkey cortical cells in spatial-resolution tasks
Parker, A., & Hawken, M. (1985) · Journal of the Optical Society of America A · doi:10.1364/josaa.2.001101 · Cited by 128 · see citing works
Learning the invariance properties of complex cells from their responses to natural stimuli
Einhäuser, W., Kayser, C., König, P., & Körding, K. P. (2002) · European Journal of Neuroscience · doi:10.1046/j.0953-816x.2001.01885.x · Cited by 91 · see citing works
Coding of the contrasts in natural images by populations of neurons in primary visual cortex (V1)
Clatworthy, P. L., Chirimuuta, M., Lauritzen, J. S., & Tolhurst, D. J. (2003) · Vision Research · doi:10.1016/s0042-6989(03)00277-3 · Cited by 54 · see citing works
Willmore, B. D. B., Bulstrode, H., & Tolhurst, D. J. (2012) · Vision Research · doi:10.1016/j.visres.2011.12.008 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
A 7T fMRI dataset of synthetic images for out-of-distribution modeling of vision
Gifford, A. T., Cichy, R. M., Naselaris, T., & Kay, K. (2026) · Nature Communications · doi:10.1038/s41467-026-69345-9 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
- Authors
- De Valois, R. L., Albrecht, D. G., & Thorell, L. G.
- Affiliations
- University of California, Berkeley (US)
- ORCID
- Thorell, Lisa G.
- Venue
- Vision Research
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 1982-01
- Volume
- 22
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 545-559
- ISSN
- 0042-6989 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2135587681
- Cited by
- 1,489
- References
- 36
- Citations by year
- 2026: 34 · 2025: 32 · 2024: 33 · 2023: 17 · 2022: 21 · 2021: 38 · 2020: 34 · 2019: 30 · 2018: 46 · 2017: 36 · 2016: 46 · 2015: 49 · 2014: 60 · 2013: 40 · 2012: 50
- FWCI
- 15.25
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Vision Research (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neuroscience and Neuropharmacology Research
- Keywords
- spatial frequency selectivity, primary visual cortex, macaque visual cortex, contrast sensitivity, retinal eccentricity, orientation tuning, simple cells, complex cells, bandwidth
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Fovea Centralis, Macaca, Oscillometry, Space Perception, Visual Cortex
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review