The pulvinar and visual salience
Abstract
One of the major problems of living in a rich visual environment is deciding which particular object or location should be chosen for complete processing or attention; that is, deciding which object is most salient at any particular time. The pulvinar has enlarged substantially during evolution, although little has previously been known about its function. Recent studies suggest that the pulvinar contains neurons that generate signals related to the salience of visual objects. This evidence includes: (1) anatomical and physiological observations of visual function; (2) augmented responses in the pulvinar for visual stimuli presented in important contexts; (3) suppression of activity for stimuli presented in irrelevant conditions; (4) thalamic modulation producing behavioral changes in cued attention paradigms; and (5) similar changes with visual distracter tasks.
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The pulvinar has been implicated in the salience of visual stimuli.
“The Pv has also been implicated in the salience of visual stimuli (40).”
From Comparative Perspectives on Oxytocin and Vasopressin Receptor Research in Rodents and Primates: Translational Implications (2016) · cites this paper as [40]
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- Authors
- Robinson, D. L., & Petersen, S. E.
- Affiliations
- National Institutes of Health (US)
- Washington University in St. Louis (US)
- ORCID
- Petersen, Steven E.
- Venue
- Trends in Neurosciences
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 1992-04
- Volume
- 15
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 127-132
- ISSN
- 0166-2236 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1995920481
- Cited by
- 469
- References
- 46
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 14 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 9 · 2017: 16 · 2016: 11 · 2015: 17 · 2014: 29 · 2013: 11 · 2012: 18
- FWCI
- 3.27
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Trends in Neurosciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health (5r01ey008775-05)
- National Eye Institute (EY-08775)
- National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NS 06833)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition › Visual Attention and Saliency Detection
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Keywords
- pulvinar, visual saliency, visual attention, thalamus, distractor suppression, thalamic neurons
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Eye Movements, Humans, Mental Processes, Thalamic Nuclei, Vision, Ocular, Visual Fields, Visual Perception
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